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He mounted tolvard the guardians of the 
imperial court and fortune U?as Ipith him 


Lazarre 

Sy 

^Hary Hartlvell Catherlvood 

With illustrations 

*By Andre Castaigne 


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Indianapolis 

The 3olpen‘9Ierrill Company 

Tublishers 


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THE t.iSRARV OF 
CONGRESS, 
Two CofifcB Receives 

AUG. 31 1901 

COPVRKJHT entry 

THcUf 27 . f 90 f 

CLASS «^XXc. N*. 

/C 

CORY Q. 


Copyrighted, 1901 
By The Bowen-Merrill Company 


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PRESS OF 

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BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 
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PRELUDE 


ST. BAT’S 








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LAZARRE 


«Tl /Tv name is Eagle/' said the little girl. 

XV JL The boy said nothing. 

name is Eagle/' she repeated. ^‘Eagle de 
Ferrier. What is your name?" 

Still the boy said nothing. 

She looked at him surprised, but checked her dis- 
pleasure. He was about nine years old, while she 
was less than seven. By the dim light which sifted 
through the top of St. Bat's church he did not appear 
sullen. He sat on the flagstones as if dazed and 
stupefied, facing a blacksmith's forge, which for 
many generations had occupied the north transept. 
A smith and some apprentices hammered measures 
that echoed with multiplied volume from the Nor- 
man roof ; and the crimson fire made a spot vivid as 
blood. A low stone arch, half walled up, and black- 
ened by smoke, framed the top of the smithy, and 
through this frame could be seen a bit of St. Bat's 
close outside, upon which the doors stood open. Now 
an apprentice would seize the bellows-handle and 
blow up flame which briefly sprang and disappeared. 

3 


4 


AZ ARRH 


The aproned figures, Saxon and brawny, made a fas- 
cinating show in the dark shop. 

Though the boy was dressed like a plain French 
citizen of that year, 1795, and his knee breeches 
betrayed shrunken calves, and his sleeves, wrists 
that were swollen as with tumors, Eagle accepted 
him as her equal. His fine wavy hair was of a chest- 
nut color, and his hands and feet were small. His 
features were perfect as her own. But while life 
played unceasingly in vivid expression across her 
face, his muscles never moved. The hazel eyes, 
bluish around their iris rims, took cognizance of 
nothing. His left eyebrow had been parted by a cut 
now healed and forming its permanent scar. 

^‘You understand me, don’t you?” Eagle talked 
to him. “But you could not understand Sally Blake. 
She is an English girl. We live at her house until 
our ship sails, and I hope it will sail soon. Poor boy ! 
Did the wicked mob in Paris hurt your arms ?” 

She soothed and patted his wrists, and he neither 
shrank in pain nor resented the endearment with 
male shyness. 

Eagle edged closer to him on the stone pavement. 
She was amused by the blacksmith’s arch, and inter- 
ested in all the unusual life around her, and she 
leaned forward to find some response in his eyes. He 
was unconscious of his strange environment. The 
ancient church of St. Bartholomew the Great, or St. 
Bat’s as it was called, in the heart of London, had 
long been a hived village. Not only were houses 
clustered thickly around its outside walls and the 


Iv AZ ARRK 


5 


space of ground named its close; but the inside, 
degraded from its first use, was parceled out to own- 
ers and householders. The nave only had been 
retained as a church bounded by massive pillars, 
which did not prevent Londoners from using it as 
a thoroughfare. Children of resident dissenters 
could and did hoot when it pleased them, during 
service, from an overhanging window in the choir. 
The Lady Chapel was a fringe-maker^s shop. The 
smithy in the north transept had descended from 
father to son. The south transept, walled up to 
make a respectable dwelling, showed through its 
open door the ghastly marble tomb of a crusader 
which the thrifty London housewife had turned into 
a parlor table. His crossed feet and hands and up- 
ward staring countenance protruded from the midst 
of knick-knacks. 

Light fell through the venerable clerestory on 
upper arcades. Some of these were walled shut, 
but others retained their arched openings into the 
church, and formed balconies from which upstairs 
dwellers could look down at what was passing be- 
low. 

Two women leaned out of the Norman arcades, 
separated only by a pillar, watching across the nave 
those little figures seated in front of the black- 
smith's window. An atmosphere of comfort and 
thrift filled St. Bat's. It was the abode of labor and 
humble prosperity, not an asylum of poverty. Great 
worthies, indeed, such as John Milton, and nearer 
our own day, Washington Irving, did not disdain to 


6 


Iv AZ A.RRK 


live in St. Bartholomew’s close. The two British 
matrons, therefore, spoke the prejudice of the better 
rather than the baser class. 

“The little devils !” s^id one Woman. 

“They look innocent,” remarked the other. “But 
these French do make my back crawl !” 

“How long are they going to stay in St. Bat’s ?” 

“The two men with the little girl and the servant 
intend to sail for America next week. The lad, and 
the man that brought him in — as dangerous looking 
a foreigner as ever I saw ! — are like to prowl out 
any time. I saw them go into the smithy, and I went 
over to ask the smith’s wife about them. She let two 
upper chambers to the creatures this morning.” 

“What ails the lad ? He has the look of an idiot.” 

“Well, then, God knows what ails any of the 
crazy French ! If they all broke out with boils like 
the heathen of scripture, it would not surprise a 
Christian. As it is, they keep on beheading one 
another, day after day and month after month ; and 
the time must come when none of them will be left — 
and a satisfaction that will be to respectable folks !” 

“First the king, and then the queen,” mused one 
speaker. “And now news comes that the little 
prince has died of bad treatment in his prison. Eng- 
land will not go into mourning for him as it did for 
his father. King Louis. What a pretty sight it was, 
to see every decent body in a bit of black, and the 
houses draped, they say, in every town ! A comfort 
it must have been to the queen of France when she 
heard of such Christian respect!” 


Iv AZ A.RRB 


7 


The women’s faces, hard in texture and rubicund 
as beef and good ale could make them, leaned silently 
a moment high above the dim pavement. St. Bat’s 
little bell struck the three quarters before ten; 
lightly, delicately, with always a promise of the 
great booming which should follow on the stroke 
of the hour. Its perfection of sound contrasted with 
the smithy clangor of metal in process of welding. 
A butcher’s boy made his way through the front 
entrance toward a staircase, his feet echoing on the 
flags, carrying exposed a joint of beef on the board 
upon his head. 

“And how do your foreigners behave themselves, 
Mrs. Blake?” inquired the neighbor. 

“Like French emmy-grays, to be sure. I told 
Blake when he would have them to lodge in the 
house, that we are a respectable family. But he is 
master, and their lordships has money in their 
purses.” 

“French lordships!” exclaimed the neighbor. 
“Whether they calls themselves counts or markises, 
what’s their nobility worth? Nothing!” 

“The Markis de Ferrier,” retorted Mrs. Blake, 
nettled by a liberty taken with her lodgers which 
she reserved for herself, “is a gentleman if he is an 
emmy-gray, and French. Blake may be master in 
his own house, but he knows landed gentry from 
tinkers — whether they ever comes to their land again 
or not.” 

“Well, then,” soothed her gossip, “I was only 
thinking of them French that comes over, glad to 


8 


Iv AZ ARRK 


teach their betters, or even to work with their hands 
for a crust.’^ 

“Still,” said Mrs. Blake, again giving rein to her 
prejudices, “I will be glad to see all French papists 
out of St. Bat’s. For what does scripture say? — 
Touch not the unclean thing!’ And that servant- 
body, instead of looking after her little missus, gal- 
loping out of the close on some bloody errand !” 

“You ought to be thankful, Mrs. Blake, to have 
her out of the way, instead of around our children, 
poisoning their hinfant minds! Thank God they 
are playing in the church lane like little Christians, 
safe from even that lad and lass yonder !” 

A yell of fighting from the little Christians min- 
gled with their hoots at choir boys gathering for the 
ten o’clock service in St. Bat’s. When Mrs. Blake 
and her friend saw this preparation, they withdrew 
their dissenting heads from the arcades in order not 
to countenance what might go on below. 

Minute followed minute, and the little bell struck 
the four quarters. Then the great bell boomed out 
ten; — the bell which had given signal for lighting 
the funeral piles of many a martyr, on Smithfield, 
directly opposite the church. Organ music pealed ; 
choir boys appeared from their robing-room beside 
the entrance, pacing two and two as they chanted. 
The celebrant stood in his place at the altar, and 
antiphonal music rolled among the arches ; pierced 
by the dagger voice of a woman in the arcades, who 
called after the retreating butcher’s boy to look 
sharp, and bring her the joint she ordered. 


Iv A Z A R R K 


9 


Eagle sprang up and dragged the arm of the un- 
moving boy in the north transept. There was a 
weeping tomb in the chancel which she wished to 
show him, — lettered with a threat to shed tears for 
a beautiful memory if passers-by did not contribute 
their share; a threat the marble duly executed on 
account of the dampness of the church and the hard- 
ness of men’s hearts. But it was impossible to dis- 
turb a religious service. So she coaxed the boy, 
dragging behind her, down the ambulatory beside 
the oasis of chapel, where the singers, sitting side- 
ways, in rows facing each other, chanted the Venite. 
A few worshipers from the close, all of them women, 
pattered in to take part in this daily office. The 
smithy hammers rang under organ measures, and 
an odor of cooking sifted down from the arcades. 

Outside the church big fat-bellied pigeons were 
cooing about the tower or strutting and pecking on 
the ground. To kill one was a grave offense. The 
worst boy playing in the lane durst not lift a hand 
against them. 

Very different game were Eagle and the other 
alien whom she led past the red faced English chil- 
dren. 

^^Good day,” she spoke pleasantly, feeling their 
antagonism. They answered her with a titter. 

*^Sally Blake is the only one I know,” she ex- 
plained in French, to her companion who moved fee- 
bly and stiffly behind her dancing step. 'T cannot 
talk English to them, and besides, their manners are 
not good, for they are not like our peasants.” 


10 


Iv AZ ARRK 


Sally Blake and a bare kneed lad began to amble 
behind the foreigners, he taking his cue smartly and 
lolling out his tongue. The whole crowd set up a 
shout, and Eagle looked back. She wheeled and 
slapped the St. Bat’s girl in the face. 

That silent being whom she had taken under her 
care recoiled from the blow which the bare kneed 
boy instantly gave him, and without defending him- 
self or her, shrunk down in an attitude of entreaty. 
She screamed with pain at this sight, which hurt 
worse than the hair-pulling of the mob around her. 
She fought like a panther in front of him. 

Two men in the long narrow lane leading from 
Smithfield, interfered, and scattered her assailants. 

You may pass up a step into the graveyard, which 
is separated by a wall from the lane. And though 
nobody followed, the two men hurried Eagle and the 
boy into the graveyard and closed the gate. 

It was not a large inclosure, and thread-like paths, 
grassy and ungraveled, wound among crowded 
graves. There was a very high outside wall : and the 
place insured such privacy as could not be had in 
St. Bat’s church. Some crusted stones lay broad as 
gray doors on ancient graves; but the most stood 
up in irregular oblongs, white and lichened. 

A cat call from the lane was the last shot of the 
battle. Eagle valiantly sleeked her disarrayed hair, 
the breast under her bodice still heaving and sob- 
bing. The June sun illuminated a determined child 
of the gray eyed type between white and brown. 


Iv AZ ARRB 


II 


flushed with fullness of blood, quivering with her 
intensity of feeling. 

“Who would say this was Mademoiselle de Per- 
rier !” observed the younger of the two men. Both 
were past middle age. The one whose queue showed 
the most gray took Eagle reproachfully by her 
hands; but the other stood laughing. 

“My little daughter !’* 

“I did strike the English girl — and I would do it 
again, father !” 

“She would do it again, monsieur the marquis,’* 
repeated the laugher. 

“Were the children rude to you?” 

“They mocked him, father.” She pulled the boy 
from behind a grave-stone where he crouched un- 
moving as a rabbit, and showed him to her guar- 
dians. “See how weak he is ! Regard him — how he 
walks in a dream ! Look at his swollen wrists — he 
cannot fight. And if you wish to make these Eng- 
lish respect you you have got to fight them !” 

“Where is Ernestine? She should not have left 
you alone.” 

“Ernestine went to the shops to obey your orders, 
father.” 

The boy’s dense inertia was undisturbed by what 
had so agonized the girl. He stood in the English 
sunshine gazing stupidly at her guardians. 

“Who is this boy. Eagle ?” exclaimed the younger 
man. 

“He does not talk. He does not tell his name.” 


12 


Iv A Z A R R K 


The younger man seized the elder’s arm and whis- 
pered to him. 

“No, Philippe, no !” the elder man answered. But 
they both approached the boy with a deference 
which surprised Eagle, and examined his scarred 
eyebrow and his wrists. Suddenly the marquis 
dropped upon his knees and stripped the stockings 
down those meager legs. He kissed them, and the 
swollen ankles, sobbing like a woman. The boy 
seemed unconscious of this homage. Such exagger- 
ation of her own tenderness m.ade her ask, 

“What ails my father, Cousin Philippe ?” 

Her Cousin Philippe glanced around the high 
walls and spoke cautiously. 

“Who was the English girl at the head of your 
mob, Eagle?” 

“Sally Blake.” 

“What would Sally Blake do if she saw the little 
king of France and Navarre ride into the church 
lane, filling it with his retinue, and heard the royal 
•salute of twenty-one guns fired for him?” 

“She would be afraid of him.” 

“But when he comes afoot, with that idiotic face, 
giving her such a good chance to bait him — how can 
she resist baiting him ? Sally Blake is human.” 

“Cousin Philippe, this is not our dauphin? Our 
dauphin is dead ! Both my father and you told me 
he died in the Temple prison nearly two weeks ago !” 

The Marquis de Ferrier replaced the boy’s stock- 
ings reverently, and rose, backing away from him. 

“There is your king. Eagle,” the old courtier an- 


Iv A. Z A R R K 


13 


nounced to his child. “Louis XVII, the son of 
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, survives in this 
wreck. How he escaped from prison we do not 
know. Why he is here unrecognized in England, 
where his claim to the throne was duly acknowl- 
edged on the death of his father, we do not know. 
But we who have often seen the royal child cannot 
fail to identify him; brutalized as he is by the past 
horrible year of his life.’’ 

The boy stood unwinking before his three expa- 
triated subjects. Two of them noted the traits of 
his house, even to his ears, which were full at top, 
and without any indentation at the bottom where 
they met the sweep of the jaw. 

The dauphin of France had been the most tor- 
tured victim of his country’s Revolution. By a jailer 
who cut his eyebrow open with a blow, and knocked 
him down on the slightest pretext, the child had been 
forced to drown memory in fiery liquor, month after 
month. During six worse months, which might 
have been bettered by even such a jailer, hid from 
the light in an airless dungeon, covered with rags 
which were never changed, and with filth and ver- 
min which daily accumulated, having his food 
passed to him through a slit in the door, hearing no 
human voice, seeing no human face, his joints swell- 
ing with poisoned blood, he had died in everything 
except physical vitality, and was taken out at last 
merely a breathing corpse. Then it was proclaimed 
that this corpse had ceased to breathe. The heir 
of a long line of kings was coffined and buried. 


14 


Iv AZ AR RK 


While the elder De Ferrier shed nervous tears, the 
younger looked on with eyes which had seen the 
drollery of the French Revolution. 

wish I knew the man who has played this clever 
trick, and whether honest men or the rabble are 
behind it.” 

“Let us find him and embrace him !” 

“I would rather embrace his prospects when the 
house of Bourbon comes again to the throne of 
France. Who is that fellow at the gate? He looks 
as if he had some business here.” 

The man came on among the tombstones, show- 
ing a full presence and prosperous air, suggesting 
good vintages, such as were never set out in the 
Smithfield alehouse. Instead of being smooth 
shaven, he wore a very long mustache which 
dropped its ends below his chin. 

A court painter, attached to his patrons, ought to 
have fallen into straits during the Revolution. Phi- 
lippe exclaimed with astonishment — 

“Why, it’s Bellenger ! Look at him !” 

Bellenger took off his cap and made a deep rev- 
erence. 

“My uncle is weeping over the dead English, Bel- 
lenger,” said Philippe. “It always moves him to 
tears to see how few of them die.” 

“We can make no such complaint against French- 
men in these days, monsieur,” the court painter 
answered. “I see you have my young charge here, 
enjoying the gravestones with you; — a pleasing 


IvAZARRB 15 

change after the unmarked trenches of France. With 
your permission I will take him away.’’ 

^'Have I the honor. Monsieur Bellenger, of salut- 
ing the man who brought the king out of prison?” 
the old man inquired. 

Again Bellenger made the marquis a deep rever- 
ence, which modestly disclaimed any exploit. 

‘'When was this done ? — Who were your helpers ? 
Where are you taking him?” 

Bellenger lifted his eyebrows at the fanatical roy- 
alist. 

“I wish I had had a hand in it !” spoke Philippe 
de Ferrier. 

“I am taking this boy to America, monsieur the 
marquis,” the painter quietly answered. 

“But why not to one of his royal uncles?” 

“His royal uncles,” repeated Bellenger. “Pardon, 
Monsieur the Marquis, but did I say he had any 
royal uncles?” 

“Come!” spoke Philippe de Ferrier. “No jokes 
with us, Bellenger. Honest men of every degree 
should stand together in these times.” 

Eagle sat down on a flat gravestone, and looked 
at the boy who seemed to be an object of dispute 
between the men of her family and the other man. 
He neither saw nor heard what passed. She said 
to herself — 

“It would make no difference to me! It is the 
same, whether he is the king or not.” 

Bellenger’s eyes half closed their lids as if for 
protection from the sun. 


i6 


Iv AZ ARRB 


^‘Monsieur de Ferrier may rest assured that I am 
not at present occupied with jokes. I will again 
ask permission to take my charge away.” 

^^You may not go until you have answered some 
questions.” 

“That I will do as far as I am permitted.” 

“Do Monsieur and his brother know that the king 
is here?” inquired the elder De Ferrier, taking the 
lead. 

“What reason have you to believe,” responded 
Bellenger, “that the Count de Provence and the 
Count d’Artois have any interest in this boy ?” 

Philippe laughed, and kicked the turf. 

“We have seen him many a time at Versailles, my 
friend. You are very mysterious.” 

“Have his enemies, or his friends set him free?” 
demanded the old Frenchman. 

“That,” said Bellenger, “I may not tell.” 

“Does Monsieur know that you are going to take 
him to America?” 

“That I may not tell.” 

“When do you sail, and in what vessel ?” 

“These matters, also, I may not tell.” 

“This man is a kidnapper!” the old noble cried, 
bringing out his sword with a hiss. But Philippe 
held his arm. 

“Among things permitted to you,” said Philippe, 
“perhaps you will take oath the boy is not a Bour- 
bon?” 

Bellenger shrugged, and waved his hands. 

“You admit that he is?” 



‘ I will a^ain ask permission to take my charge away ” 





Iv AZ ARRB 


17 


“I admit nothing, monsieur. These are days in 
which we save our heads as well as we can, and 
admit nothing.’’ 

“If we had never seen the dauphin we should 
infer that this is no common child you are carrying 
away so secretly, bound by so many pledges. A man 
like you, trusted with an important mission, natu- 
rally magnifies it. You refuse to let us know any- 
thing about this affair?” 

“I am simply obeying orders, monsieur,” said 
Bellenger humbly. “It is not my affair.” 

“You are better dressed, more at ease with the 
world than any other refugee I have seen since we 
came out of France. Somebody who has money is 
paying to have the child placed in safety. Very 
well. Any country but his own is a good country 
for him now. My uncle and I will not interfere. 
We do not understand. But liberty of any kind is 
better than imprisonment and death. You can of 
course evade us, but I give you notice I shall look 
for this boy in America, and if you take him else- 
where I shall probably find it out.” 

“America is a large country,” said Bellenger, 
smiling. 

He took the boy by the hand, and made his adieus. 
The old De Ferrier deeply saluted the boy and 
slightly saluted his guardian. The other De Ferrier 
nodded. 

“We are making a mistake, Philippe!” said the 
uncle. 

“Let him go,” said the nephew. “He will probably 


i8 


Iv AZ ARRK 


slip away at once out of St. Bartholomew’s. We 
can do nothing until we are certain of the powers 
behind him. Endless disaster to the child himself 
might result from our interference. If France were 
ready now to take back her king, would she accept 
an imbecile ?” 

The old De Ferrier groaned aloud. 

“Bellenger is not a bad man,” added Philippe. 

Eagle watched her playmate until the closing gate 
hid him from sight. She remembered having once 
implored her nurse for a small plaster image dis- 
played in a shop. It could not speak, nor move, nor 
love her in return. But she cried secretly all night 
to have it in her arms, ashamed of the unreasonable 
desire, but conscious that she could not be appeased 
by anything else. That plaster image denied to her 
symbolized the strongest passion of her life. 

The pigeons wheeled around St. Bat’s tower, or 
strutted burnished on the wall. The bell, which she 
had forgotten since sitting with the boy in front of 
the blacksmith shop, again boomed out its record 
of time; though it seemed to Eagle that a long, 
lonesome period like eternity had begun. 


BOOK I. 


t 


AWAKING 



# 


I 


I REMEMBER poising naked upon a rock, ready 
to dive into Lake George. This memory stands 
at the end of a diminishing vista; the extreme 
point of coherent recollection. My body and mus- 
cular limbs reflected in the water filled me with 
savage pride. 

I knew, as the beast knows its herd, that my 
mother Marianne was hanging the pot over the fire 
pit in the center of our lodge; the children were 
playing with other papooses; and my father was 
hunting down the lake. The hunting and fishing 
were good, and we had plenty of meat. Skenedonk, 
whom I considered a person belonging to myself, 
was stripping more slowly on the rock behind me. 
We were heated with wood ranging. Aboriginal life, 
primeval and vigor-giving, lay behind me when I 
plunged expecting to strike out under the delicious 
forest shadow. 

When I came up the sun had vanished, the woods 
and their shadow were gone. So were the Indian 
children playing on the shore, and the shore with 
them. My mother Marianne might still be hanging 
her pot in the lodge. But all the hunting lodges of 
our people were as completely lost as if I had en- 
tered another world. 

My head was bandaged, as I discovered when I 
turned it to look around. The walls were not the 


21 


22 


Iv A Z A R R K 


log walls of our lodge, chinked with moss and topped 
by a bark roof. On the contrary they were grander 
than the inside of St. Regis church where I took my 
first communion, though that was built of stone. 
These walls were paneled, as I learned afterward 
to call that noble finishing, and ornamented with 
pictures, and crystal sockets for candles. The use 
of the crystal sockets was evident, for one shaded 
wax light burned near me. The ceiling was not 
composed of wooden beams like some Canadian 
houses, but divided itself into panels also, reflecting 
the light with a dark rosy shining. Lace work finer 
than a priest’s white garments fluttered at the win- 
dows. 

I had dived early in the afternoon, and it was 
night. Instead of finding myself still stripped for 
swimming, I had a loose robe around me, and a cov- 
erlet drawn up to my armpits. The couch under me 
was by no means of hemlock twigs and skins, like 
our bunks at home : but soft and rich. I wondered if 
I had died and gone to heaven; and just then the 
Virgin moved past my head and stood looking down 
at me. I started to jump out of a window, but felt 
so little power to move that I only twitched, and pre- 
tended to be asleep, and watched her as we sighted 
game, with eyes nearly shut. She had a poppet of 
a child on one arm that sat up instead of leaning 
against her shoulder, and looked at me, too. The 
poppet had a cap on its head, and was dressed in lace, 
and she wore a white dress that let her neck and 
arms out, but covered her to the ground. This was 


L. AZ A R R B 


23 


remarkable, as the Indian women covered their necks 
and arms, and wore their petticoats short. I could 
see this image breathe, which was a marvel, and the 
color moving under her white skin. Her eyes 
seemed to go through you and search all the veins, 
sending a shiver of pleasure down your back. 

Now I knew after the first start that she was a liv- 
ing girl holding a living baby, and when my father, 
Thomas Williams, appeared at the door of the room, 
it was certain I could not be in heaven. It came 
over me in a flash that I myself was changed. In 
spite of the bandages my head was as clear as if all 
its faculties were washed and newly arranged. I 
could look back into my life and perceive things that 
I had only sensed as a dumb brute. A fish thawed 
out after being frozen, and reanimated through 
every sparkling scale and tremulous fin, could not 
have felt its resurrection more keenly. My broken 
head gave me no trouble at all. 

The girl and baby disappeared as soon as I saw 
my father; which was not surprising, for he could 
not be called a prepossessing half-breed. His lower 
lip protruded and hung sullenly. He had heavy 
brows and a shaggy thatch of hair. Our St. Regis 
Iroquois kept to the buckskins, though they often 
had hunting shirts of fulled flannel ; and my father's 
buckskins were very dirty. 

A little man, that I did not know was in the room, 
shuffled across the floor to keep my father from en- 
tering. Around the base of his head he had a thin 
curtain of hair scarcely reaching his shoulders. His 


24 


Iv AZ ARRB 


nose pointed upward. Its tip was the shape of a 
candle extinguisher. He wore horn spectacles ; and 
knee breeches, waistcoat and coat of black like the 
ink which fades to brown in a drying ink-horn. He 
put his hands together and took them apart uncer- 
tainly, and shot out his lip and frowned, as if he 
had an universal grudge and dared not vent it. 

He said something in a language I did not under- 
stand, and my father made no answer. Then he 
began a kind of Anglo-French, worse than the 
patois we used at St. Regis when we did not speak 
Iroquois. I made out the talk between the two, 
understanding each without hesitation. 

^‘Sir, who are you?’^ 

'The chief, Thomas Williams,” answered my 
father. 

"Pardon me, sir; but you are unmistakably an 
Indian.” 

"Iroquois chief,” said my father. "Mohawk.” 

"That being the case, what authority have you for 
calling yourself Thomas Williams?” challenged the 
little man. 

"Thomas Williams is my name.” 

"Impossible, sir ! Skenedonk, the Oneida, does not 
assume so much. He lays no claim to William 
Jones or John Smith, or some other honest British 
name.” 

The chief maintained silent dignity. 

"Come, sir, let me have your Indian name ! I can 
hear it if I cannot repeat it.” 


IvAZARRB 25 

Silently contemptuous, my father turned toward 
me. 

“Stop, sir the man in the horn spectacles cried. 
“What do you want?” 

“I want my boy.” 

“Your boy? This lad is white.” 

“My grandmother was white,” condescended the 
chief. “A white prisoner from Deerfield. Eunice 
Williams.” 

“I see, sir. You get your Williams from the Yan- 
kees. And is this lad’s mother white, too?” 

“No. Mohawk.” 

“Why, man, his body is like milk ! He is no son 
of yours.” 

The chief marched toward me. 

“Let him alone ! If you try to drag him out of the 
manor I will appeal to the authority of Le Ray de 
Chaumont.” 

My father spoke to me with sharp authority — 

“Lazarre!” 

“What do you call him ?” the little man inquired, 
ambling beside the chief. 

“Eleazer Williams is his name. But in the lodges, 
at St. Regis, everywhere, it is Lazarre.” 

“How old is he?” 

“About eighteen years.” 

“Well, Thomas Williams,” said my fretful guar- 
dian, his antagonism melting to patronage, “I will 
tell you who I am, and then you can feel no anxiety. 
I am Doctor Chantry, physician to the Count de 
Chaumont. The lad cut his head open on a rock, 


226 


Iv AZ ARRK 


diving in the lake, and has remained unconscious 
ever since. This is partly due to an opiate I have 
administered to insure complete quiet; and he will 
not awake for several hours yet. He received the 
best surgery as soon as he was brought here and 
placed in my hands by the educated Oneida, Skene- 
donk.^’ 

‘T was not near the lodge,” said my father. ‘T 
was down the lake, fishing.” 

‘T have bled him once, and shall bleed him again ; 
though the rock did that pretty effectually. But 
these strapping young creatures need frequent 
blood-letting.” 

The chief gave him no thanks, and I myself 
resolved to knock the little doctor down, if he came 
near me with a knife. 

“In the absence of Count de Chaumont, Thomas,” 
he proceeded, “I may direct you to go and knock on 
the cook’s door, and ask for something to eat before 
you go home.” 

“I stay here,” responded my father. 

“There is not the slightest need of anybody’s 
watching beside the lad to-night. I was about to 
retire when you were permitted to enter. He is 
sleeping like an infant.” 

“He belongs to me,” the chief said. 

Doctor Chantry jumped at the chief in rage. 

“For God’s sake, shut up and go about your busi- 
ness !” 

It was like one of the little dogs in our camp snap- 
ping at the patriarch of them all, and recoiling from 


Iv AZ ARRB 


27 


a growl. My father’s hand was on his hunting 
knife; but he grunted and said nothing. Doctor 
Chantry himself withdrew from the room and left 
the Indian in possession. Weak as I was I felt my 
insides quake with laughter. My very first obser- 
vation of the whimsical being tickled me with a 
kind of foreknowledge of all his weak fretfulness. 

My father sat down on the floor at the foot of my 
couch, where the wax light threw his shadow, 
exaggerating its unmoving profile. I noticed one of 
the chairs he disdained as useless; though when 
eating or drinking with white men he sat at table 
with them. The chair I saw was one that I faintly 
recognized, as furniture of some previous expe- 
rience, slim legged, gracefully curved, and brocaded. 
Brocaded was the word. I studied it until I fell 
asleep. 

The sun, shining through the protected windows, 
instead of glaring into our lodge door, showed my 
father sitting in the same position when I woke, and 
Skenedonk at my side. I liked the educated Iro- 
quois. He was about ten years my senior. He had 
been taken to France when a stripling, and was 
much bound to the whites, though living with his 
own tribe. Skenedonk had the mildest brown eyes 
I ever saw outside a deer’s head. He was a bald 
Indian with one small scalp lock. But the just and 
perfect dome to which his close lying ears were 
attached needed no hair to adorn it. You felt glad 
that nothing shaded the benevolence of his all-over 
forehead. By contrast he emphasized the sullenness 


28 


Iv AZ A.R RE 


of my father ; yet when occasion had pressed there 
never was a readier hand than Skenedonk’s to kill. 

I tossed the cover back to spring out of bed with 
a whoop. But a woman in a high cap with ribbons 
hanging down to her heels, and a dress short enough 
to show her shoes, stepped into the room and made 
a courtesy. Her face fell easily into creases when 
she talked, and gave you the feeling that it was too 
soft of flesh. Indeed, her eyes were cushioned all 
around. She spoke and Skenedonk answered her in 
French. The meaning of every word broke through 
my mind as fire breaks through paper. 

“Madame de Ferrier sent me to inquire how the 
young gentleman is.” 

Skenedonk lessened the rims around his eyes. My 
father grunted. 

“Did Madame de Ferrier say %e young gentle- 
man ?’ ” Skenedonk inquired. 

“I was told to inquire. I am her servant Ernest- 
ine,” said the woman, her face creased with the 
anxiety of responding to questions. 

“Tell Madame de Ferrier that the young gentle- 
man is much better, and will go home to the lodges 
to-day.” 

“She said I was to wait upon him, and give him 
his breakfast under the doctor’s direction.” 

“Say with thanks to Madame de Ferrier that I 
wait upon him.” 

Ernestine again courtesied, and made way for 
Doctor Chantry. He came in quite good natured, 
and greeted all of us, his inferiors, with a humility I 


Iv AZ ARRK 


29 


then thought touching, but learned afterwards to 
distrust. My head already felt the healing blood, and 
I was ravenous for food. He bound it with fresh 
bandages, and opened a box full of glittering knives, 
taking out a small sheath. From this he made a 
point of steel spring like lightning. 

“We will bring the wholesome lancet again into 
play, my lad,” said Doctor Chantry. I waited in 
uncertainty with my feet on the floor and my hands 
on the side of the couch, while he carefully removed 
coat and waistcoat and turned up his sleeves. 

“Ernestine, bring the basin,” he commanded. 

My father may have thought the doctor was about 
to inflict a vicarious puncture on himself. Skene- 
donk, with respect for civilized surgery, waited. I 
did not wait. The operator bared me to the elbow 
and showed a piece of plaster already sticking on 
my arm. The conviction of being outraged in my 
person came upon me mightily, and snatching the 
wholesome lancet I turned its spring upon the doc- 
tor. He yelled. I leaped through the door like a 
deer, and ran barefooted, the loose robe curdling 
above my knees. I had the fleetest foot among the 
Indian racers, and was going to throw the garment 
away for the pure joy of feeling the air slide past 
my naked body, when I saw the girl and poppet baby 
who had looked at me during my first consciousness. 
They were sitting on a blanket under the trees of 
De Chaumont^s park, which deepened into wilder- 
ness. 

The baby put up a lip, and the girl surrounded it 


30 


Iv A.Z ARRB 


with her arm, dividing her sympathy with me. I 
must have been a charming object. Though raven- 
ous for food and broken-headed, I forgot my state, 
and turned off the road of escape to stare at her like 
a tame deer. 

She lowered her eyes wisely, and I got near 
enough without taking fright to see a book spread 
open on the blanket, showing two illuminated pages. 
Something parted in me. I saw my mother, as I 
had seen her in some past life: — not Marianne the 
Mohawk, wife of Thomas Williams, but a fair oval- 
faced mother with arched brows. I saw even her 
pointed waist and puffed skirts, and the lace around 
her open neck. She held the book in her hands and 
read to me from it. 

I dropped on my knees and stretched my arms 
above my head, crying aloud as women cry with 
gasps and chokings in sudden bereavement. Nebu- 
lous memories twisted all around me and I could 
grasp nothing. I raged for what had been mine — 
for some high estate out of which I had fallen into 
degradation. I clawed the ground in what must 
have seemed convulsions to the girl. Her poppet 
cried and she hushed it. 

‘^Give me my mother’s book !” I strangled out of 
the depths of my throat ; and repeated, as if torn by 
a devil — ^‘Give me my mother’s book!” 

She blanched so white that her lips looked seared, 
and instead of disputing my claim, or inquiring 
about my mother, or telling me to begone, she was 
up on her feet. Taking her dress in her finger tips 


Iv AZ A R R B 


31 

and settling back almost to the ground in the most 
beautiful obeisance I ever saw, she said — 

^‘Sire !” 

Neither in Iroquois nor in Iroquois-French had 
such a name been given to me before. I had a long 
title signifying Tree-Cutter, which belonged to 
every chief of our family. But that word — “Sire!” — 
and her deep reverence seemed to atone in some 
way for what I had lost. I sat up, quieting myself, 
still moved as water heaves. She put the missal on 
the lap of my single garment, and drew back 
a step, formally standing. My scarred ankles, at 
which the Indian children used to point, were ex- 
posed to her gaze, for I never would sit on them 
after the manner of the tribe. There was no 
restraining the tears that ran down my face. She 
might have mocked me, but she remained white and 
quiet; while I sat as dumb as a dog, and as full of 
unuttered speech. Looking back now I can see 
what passionate necessity shook me with throbs 
to be the equal of her who had received me as a 
superior. 

De Chaumont’s manor house, facing a winding 
avenue, could be seen from where we were. It was 
of stone, built to inclose a court on three sides, in 
the form that I afterwards recognized as that of 
French palaces. There were a great many flowers 
in the court, and vines covered the ends of the wings. 
All those misty half remembered hunting seasons 
that I had spent on Lake George were not without 
some knowledge. The chimneys and roofs of Le 


32 


Iv AZ ARRE) 


Ray de Chaumont’s manor often looked at me 
through trees as I steered my boat among the isl- 
ands. He was a great land owner, having more 
than three hundred thousand acres of wilderness. 
And he was friendly with both Indians and Ameri- 
cans. His figure did not mean much to me when I 
saw it, being merely a type of wealth, and wealth 
extends little power into the wilderness. 

The poppet of a child climbed up and held to the 
girl’s dress. She stooped over and kissed it, saying, 
‘‘Sit down, Paul.” The toy human being seemed 
full of intelligence, and after the first protest exam- 
ined me fearlessly, with enchanting smiles about the 
mouth and eyes. I noticed even then an upward 
curling of the mouth corners and a kind of magic 
in the liquid blue gaze, of which Paul might never 
be conscious, but which would work on every be- 
holder. 

That a child should be the appendage of such a 
very young creature as the girl, surprised me no 
more than if it had been a fawn or a dog. In the 
vivid moments of my first rousing to life I had seen 
her with Paul in her arms; and he remained part 
of her. 

We heard a rush of horses up the avenue, and out 
of the woods came Le Ray de Chaumont and his 
groom, the wealthy land owner equipped in gentle- 
man’s riding dress from his spurs to his hat. He 
made a fine show, whip hand on his hip and back 
erect as a pine tree. He was a man in middle life, 
but he reined up and dismounted with the swift 


Iv A 2: A R R K 


33 


agility of a youth, and sent his horse away with the 
groom, as soon as he saw the girl run across the 
grass to meet him. Taking her hand he bowed over 
it and kissed it with pleasing ceremony, of which I 
approved. An Iroquois chief in full council had 
not better manners than Le Ray de Chaumont. 

Paul and I waited to see what was going to hap- 
pen, for the two came toward us, the girl talking 
rapidly to the man. I saw my father and Skenedonk 
and the doctor also coming from the house, and they 
readily spied me sitting tame as a rabbit near the 
baby. 

You never can perceive yourself what figure you 
are making in the world: for when you think you 
are the admired of all eyes you may be displaying a 
fool ; and when life seems prostrated in you it may 
be that you show as a monument on the heights. 
But I could not be mistaken in De Chaumont’s opin- 
ion of me. He pointed his whip handle at me, ex- 
claiming — 

“What! — that scarecrow, madame?’’ 


II 


^ )UT look at him,” she urged. 

I J “I recognize first,” said De Chaumont 
as he sauntered, ‘‘an old robe of my own.” 

“His mother was reduced to coarse serge, I have 
been told.” 

“You speak of an august lady, my dear Eagle. 
But this is Chief Williams’ boy. He has been at 
the hunting lodges every summer since I came into 
the wilderness. There you see his father, the half- 
breed Mohawk.” 

“I saw the dauphin in London, count. I was a 
little child, but his scarred ankles and wrists and 
forehead are not easily forgotten.” 

“The dauphin died in the Temple, Eagle.” 

“My father and Philippe never believed that.” 

“Your father and Philippe were very mad royal- 
ists.” 

“And you have gone over to Bonaparte. They 
said that boy had all the traits of the Bourbons, even 
to the shaping of his ear.” 

“A Bourbon ear hears nothing but Bon^arte in 
these days,” said De Chaumont. “How do you know 
this is the same boy you saw in London?” 

“Last night while he was lying unconscious, after 
Doctor Chantry had bandaged his head and bled 
him, I went in to see if I might be of use. He was 
34 


Iv A 2: A R R B 


35 


like some one I had seen. But I did not know him 
until a moment ago. He ran out of the house like a 
wild Indian. Then he saw us sitting here, and came 
and fell down on his knees at sight of that missal. I 
saw his scars. He claimed the book as his mother’s 
— and you know, count, it was his mother’s !” 

dear child, whenever an Indian wants a pres- 
ent he dreams that you give it to him, or he claims 
it. Chief Williams’ boy wanted your valuable illum- 
inated book. I only wonder he had the taste. The 
rings on your hands are more to an Indian’s lik- 
ing.” 

'‘But he is not an Indian, count. He is as white 
as we are.” 

"That signifies nothing. Plenty of white children 
have been brought up among the tribes. Chief Wil- 
liams’ grandmother, I have heard, was a Yankee 
woman.” 

Not one word of their rapid talk escaped an ear 
trained to faintest noises in the woods. I felt like a 
tree, well set up and sound, but rooted and voiceless 
in my ignorant helplessness before the two so frankly 
considering me. 

My father stopped when he saw Madame de Per- 
rier, and called to me in Iroquois. It was plain that 
he and Doctor Chantry disagreed. Skenedonk, put 
out of countenance by my behavior, and the stub- 
bornness of the chief, looked ready to lay his hand 
upon his mouth in sign of being confounded before 
white men; for his learning had altered none of his 
inherited instincts. 


36 


Iv AZ AR RB 


But as for me, I was as De Chaumont had said, 
Chief Williams’ boy, faint from blood letting and 
twenty-four hours’ fasting; and the father’s com- 
mand reminded me of the mother’s dinner pot. I 
stood up erect and drew the flowered silk robe 
around me. It would have been easier to walk on 
burning coals, but I felt obliged to return the book 
to Iv^dame de Ferrier. She would not take it. I 
closed her grasp upon it, and stooping, saluted her 
hand with courtesy as De Chaumont had done. If 
he had roared I must have done this devoir. But all 
he did was to widen his eyes and strike his leg with 
his riding whip. 

My father and I seldom talked. An Indian boy 
who lives in water and forest all summer and on 
snowshoes all winter, finds talk enough in the nat- 
ural world without falling back upon his family. 
Dignified manners were not lacking among my eld- 
ers, but speech had seemed of little account to me 
before this day. 

The chief paddled and I sat naked in our canoe ; — 
for we left the flowered robe with a horse-boy at 
the stables ; — the sun warm upon my skin, the lake’s 
blue glamour affecting me like enchantment. 

Neither love nor aversion was associated with my 
father. I took my head between my hands and tried 
to remember a face that was associated with aver- 
sion. 

“Father,” I inquired, “was anybody ever very 
cruel to me ?” 

He looked startled, but spoke harshly. 


Iv AZ ARRK 


37 

'‘What have you got in your head ? These white 
people have been making a fool of you.” 

“I remember better to-day than I ever remembered 
before. I am different. I was a child: but to-day 
manhood has come. Father, what is a dauphin?” 

The chief made no answer. 

“What is a temple? Is it a church, like ours at 
St. Regis?” 

“Ask the priest.” 

“Do you know what Bourbon is, father, — ^particu- 
larly a Bourbon ear?” 

“Nothing that concerns you.” 

“But how could I have a Bourbon ear if it didn’t 
concern me?” 

“Who said you had such an ear ?” 

“Madame de Ferrier.” 

The chief grunted. 

“At least she told De Chaumont,” I repeated ex- 
actly, “I was the boy she saw in London, that her 
father said had all the traits of the Bourbons. Where < 
is London?” 

The chief paddled without replying. Finding him 
so ignorant on all points of the conversation, or so 
determined to put me down, I gazed awhile at our 
shadow gliding in the water, and then began again. 

“Father, do you happen to know who Bonaparte 
is?” 

This time he answered. 

“Bonaparte is a great soldier.” 

“Is he a white man or an Indian ?” 

“He is a Frenchman.” 


38 


L AZ ARRE 


I meditated on the Frenchmen I dimly remem- 
bered about St. Regis. They were undersized fel- 
lows, very apt to weep when their emotions were 
stirred. I could whip them all. 

“Did he ever come to St. Regis ?’^ 

The chief again grunted. 

“Does France come to St. Regis?” he retorted 
with an impatient question. 

“What is France, father?” 

“A country.” 

“Shall we ever go there to hunt?” 

“Shall we ever go the other side of the sunrise 
to hunt? France is the other side of the sunrise. 
Talk to the squaws.” 

Though rebuked, I determined to do it if any 
information could be got out of them. The desire 
to know things was consuming. I had the belated 
feeling of one who waked to consciousness late in 
life and found the world had run away from him. 
The camp seemed strange, as if I had been gone 
many years, but every object was so wonderfully 
distinct. 

My mother Marianne fed me, and when I lay 
down dizzy in the bunk, covered me. The family 
must have thought it was natural sleep. But it was 
a fainting collapse, which took me more than once 
afterwards as suddenly as a blow on the head, when 
my faculties were most needed. Whether this was 
caused by the plunge upon the rock or the dim life 
from which I had emerged, I do not know. One 
moment I saw the children, and mothers from the 


Iv A.Z ARRK 


39 


neighboring lodges, more interested than my own 
mother: our smoky rafters, and the fire pit in the 
center of unfloored ground: my clothes hanging 
over the bunk, and even a dog with his nose in the 
kettle. And then, as it had been the night before, 
I waked after many hours. 

By that time the family breathing sawed the air 
within the walls, and a fine starlight showed through 
the open door, for we had no window. Outside the 
oak trees were pattering their leaves like rain, re- 
minding me of our cool spring in the woods. My 
bandaged head was very hot, in that dark lair of 
animals where the log bunks stretched and deep- 
ened shadow. 

If Skenedonk had been there I would have asked 
him to bring me water, with confidence in his nat- 
ural service. The chief’s family was a large one, 
but not one of my brothers and sisters seemed as 
near to me as Skenedonk. The apathy of fraternal 
attachment never caused me any pain. The whole 
tribe was held dear. 

I stripped off Doctor Chantry’s unendurable 
bandages, and put on my clothes, for there were 
brambles along the path. The lodges and the dogs 
were still, and I crept like a hunter after game, to 
avoid waking them. Our village was an irregular 
camp, each house standing where its owner had 
pleased to build it on the lake shore. Behind it 
the blackness of wooded wilderness seemed to 
stretch to the end of the world. 

The spring made a distinct tinkle in the rush of 


40 


LAZAR RR 


low sound through the forest. A rank night sweet- 
ness of mints and other lush plants mixed its spirit 
with the body of leaf earth. I felt happy in being a 
part of all this, and the woods were to me as safe as 
the bed-chamber of a mother. It was fine to wallow, 
damming the span of escaping water with my 
fevered head. Physical relief and delicious shud- 
dering coolness ran through me. 

From that wet pillow I looked up and thought 
again of what had happened that day, and particu- 
larly of the girl whom De Chaumont had called 
Madame de Ferrier and Eagle. Every word that 
she had spoken passed again before my mind. Pos- 
sibilities that I had never imagined rayed out from 
my recumbent body as from the hub of a vast wheel. 
I was white. I was not an Indian. I had a Bourbon 
ear. She believed I was a dauphin. What was a 
dauphin, that she should make such a deep obeis- 
ance to it ? My father the chief, recommending me 
to the squaws, had appeared to know nothing about 
it. 

All that she believed De Chaumont denied. The 
rich book which stirred such torment in me — “you 
know it was his mother’s !” she said — De Chaumont 
thought I merely coveted. I can see now that the 
crude half-savage boy wallowing in the spring 
stream, set that woman, as high as the highest star 
above his head, and made her the hope and symbol 
of his possible best. 

A woman’s long cry, like the appeal of that one 
on whom he meditated, echoed through the woods 
and startled him out of his wallow. 


Ill 


I SAT up with the water trickling down my back. 
The cry was repeated, out of the west. 

I knew the woods, but night alters the most 
familiar places. It was so dark in vaults and tunnels 
of trees and thickets that I might have burrowed 
through the ground almost as easily as thresh a 
path. The million scarcely audible noises that fill 
a forest surrounded me, and twigs not broken by me 
cracked or shook. Still I made directly toward the 
woman’s voice which guided me more plainly; but 
left off running as my ear detected that she was 
only in perplexity. She called at intervals, impera^ 
tively but not in continuous screams. She was a 
white woman ; for no squaw would publish her dis- 
comfort. A squaw if lost would camp sensibly on a 
bed of leaves, and find her way back to the village 
in the morning. The wilderness was full of dangers, 
but when you are elder brother to the bear and the 
wildcat you learn their habits, and avoid or outwit 
them. 

Climbing over rocks and windfalls I came against 
a solid log wall and heard the woman talking in a 
very pretty chatter the other side of it. She only 
left off talking to call for help, and left off calling 
for help to scold and laugh again. There was a man 
imprisoned with her, and they were speaking Eng- 
41 


42 




lish, a language I did not then understand. But 
what had happened to them was very plain. They 
had wandered into a pen built by hunters to trap 
bears, and could not find the bush-masked and wind- 
ing opening, but were traveling around the walls. 
It was lucky for them that a bear had not arrived 
first, though in that case their horses must have 
smelled him. I heard the beasts shaking their bri- 
dles. 

I found my way to the opening, and whistled. At 
once the woman ceased her chatter and drew in her 
breath, and they both asked me a question that 
needed no interpretation. I told them where they 
were, and the woman began talking at once in my 
own tongue and spoke it as well as I could myself. 

‘Tn a bear pen ? George, he says we are in a bear 
pen ! Take us out, dear chief, before the bear family 
arrive home from their ball. I don’t know whether 
you are a chief or not, but most Indians are. My 
nurse was a chief’s daughter. Where are you? I 
can’t see anything but chunks of blackness.” 

I took her horse by the bridle and led him, and so 
got both the riders outside. They had no tinder, and 
neither had I ; and all of us groped for the way by 
which they had come to the bear pen. The young 
man spurred his horse in every direction, and turned 
back unable to get through. 

Though we could not see one another I knew that 
both the adventurers were young, and that they 
expected to be called to severe account for the law- 
less act they were committing. The girl, talking 


Iv AZ ARRB 


43 


English, or French, or Mohawk almost in one breath, 
took the blame upon herself and made light of the 
boy's self-reproaches. 

She laughed and said — “My father thinks I am 
with Miss Chantry, and Miss Chantry thinks I am 
with my father. He will blame her for letting me 
ride with George Croghan to meet him, and lose the 
way and so get into the bear pen.* And she will 
blame my father, and your dearest Annabel will let 
the Count de Chaumont and Miss Chantry fight it 
out. It is not an affair for youth to meddle with, 
George." 

Having her for interpreter the boy and I con- 
sulted. I might have led him back to our hunting 
camp, but it was a hard road for a woman and an 
impossible one for horses. There was no inhabited 
house nearer than De Chaumont’s own. He decided 
they must return to the road by which they had come 
into the bear pen, and gladly accepted my offer to go 
with him; dismounting and leading Annabel de 
Chaumont's horse while I led his. We passed over 
rotten logs and through black tangles, the girl bend- 
ing to her saddle bow, unwearied and full of laugh- 
ter. It was plain that he could not find any outlet, 
and falling behind with the cumbered horse he let me 
guide the party. 

I do not know by what instinct I felt my way, con- 
scious of slipping between the wild citizens of that 
vast town of trees ; but we finally reached a clearing 
and saw across the open space a lighted cabin. Its 
sashless windows and defective chinks were gilded 


44 


Iv A Z A R R B 


with the yellow light that comes from a glowing 
hearth. 

'‘I know this place!’’ exclaimed Annabel. ‘^It is 
where the Saint-Michels used to live before they 
went to my father’s settlement at Le Rayville. Look 
at the house 1 Nobody lives there. It must be full 
of witches.” 

Violin music testified that the witches were merry. 
We halted, and the horses neighed and were an- 
swered by others of their kind. 

“George Croghan’s grandmother was struck by 
a witch ball. And here her grandson stands, too 
tired to run. But perhaps there aren’t any witches 
in the house. I don’t believe wicked things would 
be allowed to enter it. The Saint-Michels were so 
pious, and ugly, and resigned to the poverty of refu- 
gees. Their society was so good for me, my mother, 
when she was alive, made me venerate them until I 
hated them. Holy Sophie died and went to heaven. 
I shall never see her again. She was, indeed, excel- 
lent. This can’t be a nest of witches. George, why 
don’t you go and knock on the door ?” 

It was not necessary, for the door opened and a 
man appeared, holding his violin by the neck. He 
stepped out to look around the cabin at some horses 
fastened there, and saw and hailed us. 

I was not sorry to be allowed to enter, for I was 
tired to exhaustion, and sat down on the floor away 
from the fire. The man looked at me suspiciously, 
though he was ruddy and good natured. But he 
bent quite over before De Chaumont’s daughter, 


Iv AZ ARRB 


45 


and made a flourish with his hand in receiving 
young Croghan. There were in the cabin with him 
two women and two little girls; and a Canadian 
servant like a fat brown bear came from the rear 
of the house to look at us and then went back to 
the horses. 

All the women began to speak, but Annabel de 
Chaumont could talk faster than the four others 
combined, so th^ knew our plight before we learned 
that they were the Grignon and Tank families, who 
were going into the west to find settlement and had 
made the house their camp for one night. The 
Dutch maid, dark and round-eyed, and the flaxen 
little Grignon, had respect for their elders and held 
their tongues while Madame Tank and Madame 
Grignon spoke, but Annabel de Chaumont was like 
a grove of sparrows. The world seemed swarming 
with young maids. The travelers were mere chil- 
dren, while the count^s daughter was startling as an 
angel. Her clothing fitted her body like an exquisite 
sheath. I do not know what it was, but it made her 
look as slim as a dragon fly. Her white and rose 
pink face had a high arched nose, and was proud and 
saucy. She wore her hair beaten out like mist, with 
rich curly shreds hanging in front of her ears to 
her shoulders. She shook her head to set her hat 
straight, and turned her eyes in rapid smiling sweeps. 
I knew as well then as I ever did afterwards that she 
was bound to befool every man that came near her. 

There were only two benches in the cabin, but it 
was floored and better made than our hunting lodges. 


46 


LAZ ARRE> 


The temporary inmates and their guests sat down in 
a long row before the fire. I was glad to make a 
pillow of a saddle near the wall, and watch their 
backs, as an outsider. Mademoiselle de Chaumont 
absorbed all eyes and all attention. She told about 
a ball, to which she had ridden with her governess 
and servants a three days’ journey, and from vrhich 
all the dancers were riding back a three days’ jour- 
ney to join in another ball at her father’s house. 
(With the hospitality which made Le Ray de Chau- 
mont’s manor the palace of the wilderness as it ex- 
isted then, she invited the hosts who sheltered her 
for the night, to come to the ball and stay all summer. 
And they lamented that they could not accept the 
invitation, being obliged to hurry on to Albany, 
where a larger party would give them escort on a 
long westward journey. 

The head of the house took up his bow, as if mus- 
ing on the ball, and Annabel de Chaumont wriggled 
her feet faster and faster. Tireless as thistledown 
that rolls here and there at the will of the wind, up 
she sprang and began to dance. The children 
watched her spellbound. None of us had ever seen 
the many figures through which she passed, or such 
wonderful dancing. The chimney was built of logs 
and clay, forming terraces. As if it was no longer 
possible for her to stay on the ground she darted 
from the bench-end to the lowest log, and stepped 
on up as fearlessly as a thing of air, until her head 
touched the roof. Monsieur Grignon played like 
mad, and the others clapped their hands. While 


Iv ARRE 


47 

she poised so I sat up to watch her, and she noticed 
me for the first time by firelight. 

"‘Look at that boy — he has been hurt — ^the blood 
is running down his cheek !’’ she cried. ‘‘I thought 
he was an Indian — and he is white !” 

She came down as lightly as she had gone up, and 
caused me to be haled against my will to the middle 
of a bench. I wanted the women to leave me alone, 
and told them my head had been broken two days 
before, and was nearly well. The mothers, too keen 
to wash and bandage to let me escape, opened a sad- 
dle pack and tore good linen. 

George Croghan stood by the chimney, slim and 
tall and handsome. His head and face were long, 
his hair was of a sunny color, and his mouth corners 
were shrewd and good natured. I liked him the 
moment I saw him. Younger in years than I, he 
was older in wit and manly carriage. While he 
looked on it was hard to have Madame Tank seize 
my head in her hands and examine my eyebrow. 
She next took my wrists, and not satisfied, stripped 
up the right sleeve and exposed a crescent-shaped 
scar, one of the rare vaccination marks of those days. 
I did not know what it was. Her animated dark 
eyes drew the brows together so that a pucker came 
between them. I looked at Croghan, and wanted to 
exclaim — “Help yourself! Anybody may handle 
me 1^^ 

“Ursule Grignon I” she said sharply, and Madame 
Grignon answered, 

“Eh, what, Katarina?’^ 


48 


Iv ARRB 


'This is the boy.” 

"But what boy ?” 

"The boy I saw on the ship.” 

"The one who was sent to America — ” 

Madame Tank put up her hand, and the other 
stopped. 

"But that was a child,” Madame Grignon then 
objected. 

"Nine years ago. He would be about eighteen 
now.” 

"How old are you?” they both put to me. 

Remembering what my father had told Doctor 
Chantry, I was obliged to own that I was about 
eighteen. Annabel de Chaumont sat on the lowest 
log of the chimney with her feet on a bench, and 
her chin in her hand, interested to the point of 
silence. Something in her eyes made it very gall- 
ing to be overhauled and have my blemishes enu- 
merated before her and Croghan. What had 
uplifted me to Madame de Perrier’s recognition 
now mocked, and I found it hard to submit. It 
would not go well with the next stranger who 
declared he knew me by my scars. 

"What do they call you in this country ?” inquired 
Madame Tank. 

I said my name was Lazarre Williams. 

"It is not !” she said in an undertone, shaking her 
head. 

I made bold to ask with some warmth what my 
name was then, and she whispered — "Poor child!” 

It seemed that I was to be pitied in any case. In 


49 


Iv AZ ARRB 

dim self-knowledge I saw that the core of my resent- 
ment was her treating me with commiseration. 
Madame de Ferrier had not treated me so. 

''You live among the Indians ?’’ Madame Tank 
resumed. 

The fact was evident. 

"Have they been kind to you 

I said they had. 

Madame Tank’s young daughter edged near her 
and inquired in a whisper, 

"Who is he, mother?” 

"Hush!” answered Madame Tank. . 

The head of the party laid down his violin and 
bow, and explained to us, 

"Madame Tank was maid of honor to the queen 
of Holland, before reverses overtook her. She 
knows court secrets.” 

"But she might at least tell us,” coaxed Annabel, 
"if this Mohawk is a Dutchman.” 

Madame Tank said nothing. 

"What could happen in the court of Holland ? The 
Dutch are slow coaches. I saw the Van Rensselaers 
once, near Albany, riding in a wagon with straw 
under their feet, on common chairs, the old Patroon 
himself driving. This boy is some off-scouring.” 

"He outranks you, mademoiselle,” retorted Ma- 
dame Tank. 

"That’s what I wanted to find out,” said Anna- 
bel. 

I kept half an eye on Croghan to see what he 
thought of all this woman talk. For you cannot help 


50 


Iv AZ ARRK 


being more dominated by the opinion of your con- 
temporaries than by that of the fore-running or 
following generation. He held his countenance in 
excellent command, and did not meddle even by a 
word. You could be sure, however, that he was no 
credulous person who accepted everything that was 
said to him. 

Madame Tank looked into the reddened fireplace, 
and began to speak, but hesitated. The whole thing 
was weird, like a dream resulting from the cut on 
my head: the strange white faces; the camp stuff 
and saddlebags unpacked from horses ; the light on 
the coarse floor ; the children listening as to a ghost 
story; Mademoiselle de Chaumont presiding over 
it all. The cabin had an arched roof and no loft. 
The top was full of shadows. 

‘Tf you are the boy I take you to be,’’ Madame 
Tank finally said, sinking her voice, “you may find 
you have enemies.” 

“If I am the boy you take me to be, madame, 
who am I?” 

She shook her head. 

“I wish I had not spoken at all. To tell you any- 
thing more would only plunge you into trouble. You 
are better off to be as you are, than to know the 
truth and suffer from it. Besides, I may be mis- 
taken. And I am certainly too helpless myself to 
be of any use to you. This much I will say : when 
you are older, if things occur that make it necessary 
for you to know what I know, send a letter to me, 
and I will write it down.” 


Iv AZ ARRK 


51 


With delicacy Monsieur Grignon began to play a 
whisper of a tune on his violin. I did not know what 
she meant by a letter, though I understood her. 
Madame Tank spoke the language as well as any- 
body. I thought then, as idiom after idiom rushed 
back on my memory, that it was an universal lan- 
guage, with the exception of Iroquois and English. 

“We are going to a place called Green Bay, in the 
Northwest Territory. Remember the name: Green 
Bay. It is in the Wisconsin country.’’ 


IV 


D awn found me lying wide awake with my 
head on a saddle. I slipped out into the 
dewy half light. 

That was the first time I ever thought about the 
mountains. They seemed to be newly created, 
standing up with streamers of mist torn and floating 
across their breasts. The winding cliff -bound lake 
was like a gorge of smoke. I felt as if I had reared 
upon my hind feet, lifting my face from the ground 
to discover there was a God. Some of the prayers 
our priest had industriously beaten into my head, 
began to repeat themselves. In a twinkling I was 
a child, lonely in the universe, separated from my 
dim old life, instinct with growth, yet ignorant of 
my own needs. 

What Madame de Ferrier and Madame Tank had 
said influenced me less than the intense life of my 
roused activities. 

It was mid forenoon by the sun when I reached 
our lodges, and sat down fagged outside my fath- 
er’s door, to think longer before I entered. Hunger 
was the principal sensation, though we had eaten in 
the cabin the night before, and the Indian life inures 
a man to fasting when he cannot come by food. I 
heard Skenedonk talking to my father and mother 
in our cabin. The village was empty ; children and 

52 


IvAZARRH 53 

women, hunters and fishermen having scattered to 
woods and waters. 

''He ought to learn books,” said Skenedonk. 
"Money is sent you every year to be spent upon him : 
yet you spend nothing upon him.” 

"What has he needed ?” said my father. 

"He needs much now. He needs American clothes. 
He wept at the sight of a book. God has removed the 
touch since he plunged in the water.” 

"You would make a fool of him,” said my father. 
"He was gone from the lodge this morning. You 
taught him an evil path when you carried him off.” 

"It is a natural path for him: he will go to his 
own. I stayed and talked with De Chaumont, and 
I bring you an offer. De Chaumont will take La- 
zarre into his house, and have him taught all that 
a white boy should know. You will pay the cost. 
If you don’t, De Chaumont will look into this 
annuity of which you give no account.” 

"I have never been asked to give account. Could 
Lazarre learn anything? The priest has sat over 
him. He had food and clothing like my own.” 

"That is true. But he is changed. Marianne will 
let him go.” 

"The strange boy may go,” said my mother. "But 
none of my own children shall leave us to be edu- 
cated.” 

I got up and went into the cabin. All three knew 
I had heard, and they waited in silence while I 
approached my mother and put my hands on her 
shoulders. There was no tenderness between us, 


54 


Iv AZ ARRE) 


but she had fostered me. The small dark eyes in her 
copper face, and her shapeless body, were associated 
with winters and summers stretching to a vanishing 
point. 

“Mother,” I said, “is it true that I am not your 
son ?” 

She made no answer. 

“Is it true that the chief is not my father ?” 

She made no answer. 

“Who sends money to be spent on me every year 

Still she made no answer. 

“If I am not your son, whose son am I ?” 

In the silence I turned to Skenedonk. 

“Isn’t my name Lazarre Williams, Skenedonk?” 

“You are called Lazarre Williams.” 

“A woman told me last night that it was not my 
name. Everyone denies me. No one owns me and 
tells whose child I am. Wasn’t I born at St. Regis ?” 

“If you were, there is no record of your birth on 
the register. The chief’s other children have their 
births recorded.” 

I turned to my father. The desolation of being 
cut off and left with nothing but the guesses of 
strangers overcame me. I sobbed so the hoarse 
choke echoed in the cabin. Skenedonk opened his 
arms, and my father and mother let me lean on the 
Oneida’s shoulder. 

I have thought since that they resented with stoical 
pain his taking their white son from them. They 
both stood severely reserved, passively loosening the 
filial bond. 


Iv AZ ARRB 


55 


All the business of life was suspended, as when 
there is death in the lodge. Skenedonk and I sat 
down together on a bunk. 

“Lazarre,’’ my father spoke, “do you want to be 
educated ?” 

The things we pine for in this world are often 
« thrust upon us in a way to choke us. I had tramped 
miles, storming for the privileges that had made 
George Croghan what he was. Fate instantly picked 
me up from unendurable conditions to set me down 
where I could grow, and I squirmed with recoil from 
the shock. 

I felt crowded over the edge of a cliff and about 
to drop into a valley of rainbows. 

“Do you want to live in De Chaumont^s house and 
learn his ways ?” 

My father and mother had been silent when I 
questioned them. It was my turn to be silent. 

“Or would you rather stay as you are 

“No, father,’^ I answered, “I want to go.’’ 

The camp had never been dearer. I walked among 
the Indian children when the evening fires were 
lighted, and the children looked at me curiously as 
at an alien. Already my people had cut me off from 
them. 

"‘What I learn I will come back and teach you,” 
I told the young men and women of my own age. 
They laughed. 

“You are a fool, Lazarre. There is a good home 
for you at St. Regis. If you fall sick in De Chau- 
mont’s house who will care ?” 


56 


L AZ AR RK 


‘‘Skenedonk is my friend,” I answered. 

“Skenedonk would not stay where he is tying you. 
When the lake freezes you will be mad for snow- 
shoes and a sight of the St. Lawrence.” 

“Perhaps so. But we are not made alike. Do not 
forget me.” 

They gave me belts and garters, and I distributed 
among them all my Indian property. Then, as if to 
work a charm which should keep me from breaking 
through the circle, they joined hands and danced 
around me. I went to every cabin, half ashamed 
of my desertion, yet unspeakably craving a blessing. 
The old people variously commented on the measure, 
their wise eyes seeing the change in one who had 
been a child rather than a young man among them. 

If the wrench from the village was hard, the 
induction into the manor was harder. Skenedonk 
took me in his boat, skirting the long strip of moun- 
tainous shore which separated us from De Chau- 
mont. 

He told me De Chaumont would permit my father 
to pay no more than my exact reckoning. 

“Do you know who sends the money?” I in- 
quired. 

The Oneida did not know. It came through an 
agent in New York. 

“You are ten years older than I am. You must 
remember very well when I was born.” 

“How can that be ?” answered Skenedonk. “No- 
body in the tribe knows when you were born.” 


Iv AZ ARRH 


57 

*‘Are children not like the young of other crea- 
tures ? Where did I come from 

“You came to the tribe with a man, and Chief 
Williams adopted you.” 

“Did you see the man?” 

“No. I was on the other side of the ocean, in 
France.” 

“Who saw him?” 

“None of our people. But it is very well known. 
If you had noticed anything you would have heard 
the story long ago.” 

What Skenedonk said was true. I asked him, 
bewildered — “Why did I never notice anything?” 

The Oneida tapped his bald head. 

“When I saw you first you were not the big fel- 
low with speaking eyes that you are to-day. You 
would sit from sunrise to sunset, looking straight 
ahead of you and never moving except when food 
was put in your hand. As you grew older the chil- 
dren dragged you among them to play. You learned 
to fish, and hunt, and swim; and knew us, and 
began to talk our language. Now at last you are 
fully roused, and are going to learn the knowledge 
there is in books.” 

I asked Skenedonk how he himself had liked 
books, and he shook his head, smiling. They were 
good for white men, very good. An Indian had 
little use for them. He could read and write and 
cast accounts. When he made his great journey to 
the far country, what interested him most was the 
behavior of the people. 


58 


.IvAZ ARRE 


We did not go into the subject of his travels at 
that time, for I began to wonder who was going to 
teach me books, and heard with surprise that it was 
Doctor Chantry. 

“But I struck him with the little knife that springs 
out of a box.” 

Skenedonk assured me that Doctor Chantry 
thought nothing of it, and there was no wound but 
a scratch. He looked on me as his pupil. He knew 
all kinds of books. 

Evidently Doctor Chantry liked me from the 
moment I showed fight. His Anglo-Saxon blood 
was stirred. He received me from Skenedonk, who 
shook my hand and wished me well, before paddling 
away. 

De Chaumont’s house was full as a hive around 
the three sides of its flowered court. A ball was in 
preparation, and all the guests had arrived. Avoid- 
ing these gentry we mounted stairs toward the roof, 
and came into a burst of splendor. As far as the 
eye could see through square east and west windows, 
unbroken forests stretched to the end of the world, 
or Lake George wound, sown thick with islands, 
ranging in size from mere rocks supporting a tree, 
to wooded acres. 

The room which weaned me from aboriginal life 
was at the top of the central building. Doctor 
Chantry shuffled over the clean oak floor and intro- 
duced me to my appointments. There were cur- 
tains like frost work, which could be pushed back 
from the square panes. At one end of the huge 


Iv A Z A R R K 


59 


apartment was my huge bed, formidable with hang- 
ings. Near it stood a table for the toilet. He 
opened a closet door in the wall and showed a 
spiral staircase going down to a tunnel which led 
to the lake. For when De Chaumont first came 
into the wilderness and built the central house 
without its wings, he thought it well to have a 
secret way out, as his chateau in the old country 
had. 

^The tunnel is damp,” said Doctor Chantry. “I 
never venture into it, though all the corner rooms 
below give upon this stairway, and mine is just 
under yours.” 

It was like returning me the lake to use in my 
own accustomed way. For the remainder of my fur- 
niture I had a study table, a cupboard for clothes, 
some arm-chairs, a case of books, and a massive 
fireplace with chimney seats at the end of the room 
opposite the bed. 

I asked Doctor Chantry, ^Was all this made 
ready for me before I was sure of coming here?” 

‘When the count decides that a thing will be 
done it is usually done,” said my schoolmaster. 
“And Madame de Ferrier was very active in for- 
warding the preparations.” 

The joy of youth in the unknown was before me. 

^My old camp life receded behind me. 

Madame de Ferrier ’s missal-book lay on the table, 
and when I stopped before it tongue-tied. Doctor 
Chantry said I was to keep it. 

“She gives it to you. It was treasured in her fam- 


6o 


IvA.Z ARRB 


ily on account of personal attachment to the giver. 
She is not a Catholic. She was brought up as good 
a Protestant as any English gentlewoman/’ 

‘‘I told her it was my mother’s. It seemed to be 
my mother’s. But I don’t know — I can’t remem- 
ber.” 

My master looked at the missal, and said it was a 
fine specimen of illumination. His manner toward 
me was so changed that I found it hard to refer to 
the lancet. This, however, very naturally followed 
his examination of my head. He said I had healthy 
blood, and the wound was closing by the first inten- 
tion. The pink cone at the tip of his nose worked in 
a whimsical grin as he heard my apology. 

^Tt is not often you will make the medicine man 
take his own remedy, my lad.” 

We thus began our relation with the best feeling. 
It has since appeared that I was a blessing to 
Doctor Chantry. My education gave him some- 
thing to do. For although he called himself physi- 
cian to Count de Chaumont, he had no real occu- 
pation in the house, and dabbled with poetry, doz- 
ing among books. De Chaumont was one of those 
large men who gather in the weak. His older 
servants had come to America with his father, and 
were as attached as kindred. A natural parasite like 
Doctor Chantry took to De Chaumont as means 
of support ; and it was pleasing to both of them. 

My master asked me when I wanted to begin my 
studies, and I said, “Now.” We sat down at the 
table, and I learned the English alphabet, some 


Iv AZ 


6i 


phrases of English talk, some spelling, and traced 
my first characters in a copy-book. With consum- 
ing desire to know, I did not want to leave off at 
dusk. In that high room day lingered. The doctor 
was fretful for his supper before we rose from our 
task. 

Servants were hurrying up and down stairs. The 
whole house had an air of festivity. Doctor Chantry 
asked me to wait in a lower corridor while he made 
some change in his dress. 

I sat down on a broad window sill, and when I 
had waited a few minutes. Mademoiselle de Chau- 
mont darted around a corner, bare armed and bare 
necked. She collapsed to the floor at sight of me, 
and then began to dance away in the opposite direc- 
tion with stiff leaps, as a lamb does in spring-time. 

I saw she was in pain or trouble, needing a ser- 
vant, and made haste to reach her; when she hid 
her face on both arms against the wall. 

‘^Go off r she hissed. S-s-s! Gooff! I haven^t 
anything on ! — Don’t go off 1 Open my door for me 
quick! — ^before anybody else comes into the hall!” 

‘‘Which door is it?” I asked. She showed me. 
It had a spring catch, and she had stepped into the 
hall to see if the catch was set. 

“The catch was set!” gasped Mademoiselle de 
Chaumont. “Break the door — get it open — any- 
way — Quick !” 

By good fortune I had strength enough in my 
shoulder to set the door wide off its spring, and she 


62 


Iv AZ A.RRK 


flew to the middle of the room slamming it in my 
face. 

Fitness and unfitness required nicer discrimina- 
tion than the crude boy from the woods possessed. 
When I saw her in the ball-room she had very little 
more on than when I saw her in the hall, and that 
little clung tight around her figure. Yet she looked 
quite unconcerned. 

After we had eaten supper Doctor Chantry and I 
sat with his sister where we could see the dancing, on 
a landing of the stairway. De Chaumont’s generous 
house was divided across the middle by a wide hall 
that made an excellent ball-room. The sides were 
paneled, like the walls of the room in which I first 
came to my senses. Candles in sconces were reflected 
by the polished, dark floor. A platform for his fid- 
dlers had been built at one end. Festoons of green 
were carried from a cluster of lights in the center of 
the ceiling, to the corners, making a bower or canopy 
under which the dancers moved. 

It is strange to think that not one stone remains 
upon another and scarcely a trace is left of this 
manor. When De Chaumont determined to remove 
to his seat at Le Rayville, in what was then called 
Castorland, he had his first hold pulled down. 

Miss Chantry was a blunt woman. Her consid- 
eration for me rested on my being her brother’s 
pupil. She spoke more readily than he did. From 
our cove we looked over the railing at an active 
world. 

‘‘Madame Eagle is a picture/' remarked Miss 


Iv A z A R R B 


63 


Chantry. ** Eagle ! What a name for civilized 

people to give a christened child ! But these French 
are as likely as not to call their boys Anne or Marie, 
and it wouldn’t surprise me if they called their girls 
Cat or Dog. Eagle or Crow, she is the handsomest 
woman on the floor.” 

'‘Except Mademoiselle Annabel,” the doctor ven- 
tured to amend. 

“That Annabel de Chaumont,” his sister vigor- 
ously declared, “has neither conscience nor grati- 
tude. But none of the French have. They will take 
your best and throw you away with a laugh.” 

My master and I watched the brilliant figures 
swimming in the glow of wax candles. Face after 
face could be singled out as beautiful, and the scant 
dresses revealed taper forms : Madame de Ter- 
rier’s garments may have been white or blue or yel- 
low ; I remember only her satin arms and neck, the 
rosy color of her face, and the powder on her hair 
making it white as down. Where this assembly was 
collected from I did not know, but it acted on the 
spirits and went like volatile essence to the brain. 

“Pheugh!” exclaimed Miss Chantry, “how the 
French smell !” 

I asked her why, if she detested them so, she lived 
in a French family, and she replied that Count de 
Chaumont was an exception, being almost English 
in his tastes. He had lived out of France since his 
father came over with La Fayette to help the rebel- 
lious Americans. 

I did not know who the rebellious Americans 


64 


Iv AZ ARRB 


were, but inferred that they were people of whom 
Miss Chantry thought almost as little as she did 
of the French. 

Croghan looked quite a boy among so many ex- 
perienced gallants, but well appointed in his dress 
and stepping through the figures featly. He was. 
Miss Chantry said, a student of William and Mary 
College. 

‘‘This company of gentry will be widely scat- 
tered when it disperses home,’’ she told us. “There 
is at least one man from over-seas.” 

I thought of the Grignon and Tank families, who 
were probably on the road to Albany. Miss Chan- 
try bespoke her brother’s attention. 

“There he is.” 

“Who ?” the doctor inquired. 

“His highness,” she incisively responded, “Prince 
Jerome Bonaparte.” 

I remembered my father had said that Bonaparte 
was a great soldier in a far off country, and directly 
asked Miss Chantry if the great soldier was in the 
ball-room. 

She breathed a snort and turned upon my master. 
“Pray, are you teaching this lad to call that impostor 
the great soldier ?” 

Doctor Chantry denied the charge and cast a 
weak-eyed look of surprise at me. 

I said my father told me Bonaparte was a great 
soldier, and begged to know if he had been de- 
ceived. 

“Oh!” Miss Chantry responded in a tone which 


Iv AZ A.RRK 


65 


slighted Thomas Williams. ^‘Well! I will tell you 
facts. Napoleon Bonaparte is one of the worst and 
most dangerous men that ever lived. He sets the 
world by the ears, and carries war into every coun- 
try of Europe. That is his youngest brother yonder 
— that superfine gallant, in the long-tailed white silk 
coat down to his heels, and white small-clothes, with 
diamond buckles in his shoes, and grand lace stock 
and ruffles. Jerome Bonaparte spent last winter in 
Baltimore ; and they say he is traveling in the north 
now to forget a charming American that Napoleon 
will not let him marry. He has got his name in the 
newspapers of the day, and so has the young lady. 
The French consul warned her officially. For Jerome 
Bonaparte may be made a little king, with other 
relations of your great soldier.’’ 

The young man who might be made a little king 
was not as large as I was myself, and had a delicate 
and womanish cut of countenance. I said he was 
not fit for a king, and Miss Chantry retorted that 
neither was Napoleon Bonaparte fit for an em- 
peror. 

‘‘What is an emperor ?” I inquired. 

“A chief over kings,” Doctor Chantry put in. 
“Bonaparte is a conqueror and can set kings over 
the countries he has conquered.” 

I said that was the proper thing to do. Miss 
Chantry glared at me. She had weak hair like her 
brother, but her eyes were a piercing blue, and the 
angles of her jaws were sharply marked. 


66 


I. AZ ARRB 


Meditating on things outside of my experience I 
desired to know what the white silk man had done. 

^‘Nothing.” 

'Then why should the emperor give him a king- 
dom?’^ 

"Because he is the emperor’s brother.” 

"But he ought to do something himself,” I in- 
sisted. "It is not enough to accept a chief’s place. 
He cannot hold it if he is not fit.” 

"So the poor Bourbons found. But they were not 
upstarts at any rate. I hope I shall live to see them 
restored.” 

Here was another opportunity to inform myself. 
I asked Miss Chantry who the Bourbons were. 

"They are the rightful kings of France.” 

"Why do they let Bonaparte and his brothers 
take their place ?” 

Doctor Chantry turned from the promenaders 
below and, with slow and careful speech, gave me 
my first lesson in history. 

"There was a great civil war in France called the 
Revolution, when part of the people ran mad to 
kill the other part. They cut off the heads of the 
king and queen, and shut up the two royal children 
in prison. The dauphin died.” 

"What is a dauphin?” 

"The heir to the throne of France was called the 
dauphin.” 

"Was he the king’s son?” 

"The king’s eldest son.” 

"If he had brothers were they dauphins too?” 


L. AZ ARRB 


67 


“No. He alone was the dauphin. The last dau- 
phin of France had no living brothers. He had only 
a sister.’’ 

“You said the dauphin died.” 

“In a prison called the Temple, in Paris.” 

“Was the Temple a prison?” 

“Yes.” 

Madame de Ferrier had said her father and some 
other person did not believe the dauphin died in the 
Temple. 

“Suppose he was alive?” I hazarded. 

“Suppose who was alive?” said Miss Chantry. 

“The dauphin.” 

“He isn’t.” 

“Did all the people believe he was dead ?” 

“They didn’t care whether he was dead or not. 
They went on killing one another until this man 
Bonaparte put himself at the head of the army and 
got the upper hand of them. The French are all fire 
and tow, and the man who can stamp on them is 
their idol.” 

“You said you hoped you would live to see the 
Bourbons restored. Dead people cannot be 
restored.” 

“Oh, the Bourbons are not all dead. The king 
of France had brothers. The elder one of these 
would be king now if the Bourbons came back to 
the throne.” 

“But he would not be king if the dauphin lived?” 

“No,” said Miss Chantry, leaning back indiffer- 
ently. 


68 


Iv AZ ARRK 


My head felt confused, throbbing with the dull 
ache of healing. I supported it, resting my elbow 
on the railing. 

The music, under cover of which we had talked, 
made one of its pauses. Annabel de Chaumont 
looked up at us, allowing the gentleman in the 
long-tailed silk coat to lead her toward the stairs. 




M ISS CHANTRY exclaimed, and her face 
stiffened with an expression which I have 
since learned to know as the fear of dignitaries; 
experienced even by people who profess to despise 
the dignitaries. Mademoiselle de Chaumont shook 
frizzes around her face, and lifted the scant 
dress from her satin shod feet as she mounted the 
stairs. Without approaching us she sat down on 
the top step of the landing with young Bonaparte, 
and beckoned to me. 

I went at her bidding and stood by the rail. 
‘Trince Jerome Bonaparte wants to see you. I 
have told him about the bear pen, and Madame 
Tank, and the mysterious marks on you, and what 
she said about your rank.’’ 

I must have frowned, for the young gentleman 
made a laughing sign to me that he did not take 
Annabel seriously. He had an amiable face, and 
accepted me as one of the oddities of the country. 

^'What fun,” said Annabel, ‘^to introduce a prince 
of the empire to a prince of the woods !” 

‘‘What do you think of your brother?” I in- 
quired. 

He looked astonished and raised his eyebrows. 

“I suppose you mean the emperor ?” 

I told him I did. 


69 


70 


L. AZ ARRK 


‘‘If you want my candid opinion/’ his eyes 
twinkled, and he linked his hands around his white 
satin knees, “I think my brother rules his family 
with a rod of iron.” 

“What will you do,” I continued, “when your 
family are turned out ?” 

“My faith !” said Annabel, “this in a house favor- 
able to the Empire!” 

“A very natural question,” said Jerome. “I have 
often asked myself the same thing.” 

“The king of France,” I argued, “and all the 
Bourbons were turned out. Why shouldn’t the 
Bonapartes be?” 

“Why shouldn’t they, indeed !” responded Jerome. 
“My mother insists they will be. But I wouldn’t 
be the man who undertakes to turn out the em- 
peror.” 

“What is he like?” 

“Impossible to describe him.” 

“Is he no larger than you ?” 

Annabel gurgled aloud. 

“He is not as large.” 

“Yet he is a great soldier?” 

“A great soldier. And he is adored by the 
French.” 

“The French,” I quoted, “are all fire and tow.” 

“Thank you 1” said Annabel, pulling out her light 
frizzes. 

“You seem interested in the political situation,” 
remarked Prince Jerome. 

I did not know what he meant by the political 


Iv A Z A R R B 71 

situation, but told him I had just heard about the 
Bonapartes. 

^‘Where have you lived?'* he laughed. 

I told him it didn't matter where people lived; 
it all depended on whether they understood or not. 

“What a sage! — I think I’m one of the people 
who will never be able to understand,” said Jerome. 

I said he did not look as if he had been idiotic, and 
both he and Mademoiselle de Chaumont laughed. 

“Monsieur” 

“Lazarre Williams,” supplemented Annabel. 

“Monsieur Lazarre Williams, whatever your lot in 
life, you will have one advantage over me ; you will 
be an American citizen.” 

“Haven’t I that doleful advantage myself?” 
mourned Annabel. “A Baltimore convent, an Eng- 
lish governess — a father that may never go back 
to France!” 

“Mademoiselle, all advantages of nationality, of 
person, of mind, of heart, are yours !” 

So tipping the interview with a compliment he 
rose up, and Annabel rose also, making him a deep 
courtesy, and giving him her hand to be led back to 
the floor. He kissed her white forefinger, and 
bowed to me. 

“You have suggested some interesting thoughts, 
monsieur prince of the woods. Perhaps you may 
yet take your turn on the throne of France. What 
would you do in that case?” 

“I would make the people behave themselves if I 
had to grind them to powder.” 


72 


AZ ARRK 


^‘Now there spoke old Louis XIV!” laughed 
young Jerome Bonaparte. We both bowed, and he 
passed down with Annabel into the hall. 

I did not know what made Madame de Perrier 
watch me from her distant place with widened 
eyes. 

Miss Chantry spoke shrilly to her brother behind 
me. 

“You will never be able to do anything with a lad 
who thrusts himself forward like that! He has no 
sense of fitness ! — standing there and facing down 
the brother of a crowned head ! — bad as the head is. 
Of course Mademoiselle Annabel set him on; she 
loves to make people ridiculous !” 

I walked downstairs after Prince Jerome, 
threaded a way among gazing dancers, and left the 
hall, stung in my pride. 

We do strangely expand and contract in vital 
force and reach of vision. I wanted to put the lake 
— the world itself — between me and that glittering 
company. The edge of a ball-room and the society 
of men in silks and satins, and of bewitching women, 
were not intended for me. 

Homesickness like physical pain came over me 
for my old haunts. They were newly recognized as 
beloved. I had raged against them when comparing 
myself to Croghan. But now I thought of the even- 
ing camp fire, and hunting stories, of the very dogs 
that licked my hand ; of St. Regis, and my loft bed, 
of snowshoes, and the blue northern river, longing 
for them as the young Mohawks said I should long. 


Iv AZ ARRK 


73 


Torn betwixt two natures, the white man’s and the 
Indian’s, I flung a boat out into the water and 
started to go home faster than I had come away. 
The slowness of a boat’s progress, pushed by the 
silly motion of oars, which have not the nice dis- 
crimination of a paddle, impressed me as I put the 
miles behind. 

When the camp light shone through trees it must 
have been close to midnight, and my people had fin- 
ished their celebration of the corn dance. An odor 
of sweet roasted ears dragged out of hot ashes 
reached the poor outsider. Even the dogs were too 
busy to nose me out. I slunk as close as I dared 
and drew myself up a tree, lying stretched with arms 
and legs around a limb. 

They would have admitted me to the feast, but 
as a guest. I had no longer a place of my own, 
either here or there. It was like coming back after 
death, to realize that you were unmissed. The camp 
was full of happiness and laughter. Young men 
chased the young maids, who ran squealing with 
merriment. My father, Thomas Williams, and my 
mother, Marianne, sat among the elders tranquil 
and satisfied. They were ignorant Indians; but I 
had no other parents. Skenedonk could be seen, 
laughing at the young Mohawks. 

If there was an oval faced mother in my past, 
who had read to me from the missal, I wanted her. 
If, as Madame Tank said, I outranked De Chau- 
mont’s daughter, I wanted my rank. It was neces- 


74 


Iv AZ A RRB 


sary for me to have something of my own : to have 
love from somebody ! 

Collapsed and dejected, I crept down the tree and 
back to the life that was now forced upon me 
whether I wished to continue it or not. Belonging 
nowhere, I remembered my refuge in the new world 
of books. 

Lying stretched in the boat with oars shipped, 
drifting and turning on the crooked lake, I took 
exact stock of my position in the world, and marked 
out my future. 

These things were known : 

I was not an Indian. 

I had been adopted into the family of Chief Wil- 
liams. 

Money was sent through an agent in New York 
for my support and education. 

There were scars on my wrists, ankles, arm and 
eyebrow. 

These scars identified me in Madame de Perrier’s 
mind and Madame Tank’s mind as a person from the 
other side of the world. 

I had formerly been deadened in mind. 

I was now keenly alive. 

These things were not known : 

Who I was. 

Who sent money for my support and education. 

How I became scarred. 

What man had placed me among the Indians. 

For the future I bound myself with three laws: 

To leave alone the puzzle of my past. 


Iv AZ ARRE 


75 


To study with all my might and strength. 

When I was grown and educated, to come back 
to my adopted people, the Iroquois, draw them to 
some place where they could thrive, and by training 
and education make them an empire, and myself 
their leader. 

The pale-skin’s loathing of the red race had not 
then entered my imagination. I said in conclusion : 

“Indians have taken care of me ; they shall be my 
brothers.” 


VI 


T he zigzag track of the boat represented a 
rift widening between me and my past. I 
sat up and took the oars, feeling older and stronger. 

It was primitive man, riding between the high- 
lands, uncumbered, free to grasp what was before 
him. 

De Chaumont did not believe in and was indiffer- 
ent to the waif whom his position of great seigneur 
obliged him to protect. What did I care? I had 
been hidden among the Indians by kindred or 
guardians humane enough not to leave me destitute. 
They should not trouble my thoughts, and neither 
— I told myself like an Indian — should the imagin- 
ings of women. 

A boy minds no labor in following his caprices. 
The long starlit pull I reckoned as nothing; and 
slipped to my room when daylight was beginning 
to surprise the dancers. 

It was so easy to avoid people in the spaciousness 
of De Chaumont’s manor that I did not again see 
the young Bonaparte nor any of the guests except 
Croghan. They slept all the following day, and the 
third day separated. Croghan found my room be- 
fore leaving with his party, and we talked as well 
as we could, and shook hands at parting. 

The impressions of that first year stay in my mind 
as I have heard the impressions of childhood remain. 
76 




77 


It was perhaps a kind of brief childhood, swift in 
its changes, and running parallel with the develop- 
ment of youth. 

My measure being sent to New York by De Chau- 
mont, I had a complete new outfit in clothes ; coat, 
waistcoat, and small-clothes, neckwear, ruffles, and 
shirts, buckle shoes, stockings of mild yarn for cold 
weather, and thread stockings. Like most of the 
things for which we yearn, when I got them I did 
not like them as well as the Indian garments they 
obliged me to shed. 

Skenedonk came to see me nearly every day, and 
sat still as long as he could while I toiled at books. 
I did not tell him how nearly I had disgraced us 
both by running secretly away to camp. So I was 
able to go back and pay visits with dignity and be 
taken seriously, instead of encountering the ridicule 
that falls upon retreat. 

My father was neither pleased nor displeased. 
He paid my accounts exactly, before the camp broke 
up for the winter, making Skenedonk his agent. 
My mother Marianne offered me food as she would 
have offered it to Count de Chaumont; and I ate 
it, sitting on a mat as a guest. Our children, par- 
ticularly the elder ones, looked me over with gravity, 
and refrained from saying anything about my 
clothes. 

Our Iroquois went north before snow flew, and 
the cabins stood empty, leaves drifting through fire- 
holes in the bark thatch. 

There have been students greedy of knowledge. 


78 


L AZ ARRE 


I seemed hollow with the fasting of a lifetime. My 
master at first tried to bind me to times; he had 
never encountered so boundless an appetite. As 
soon as I woke in the morning I reached for a book, 
and as days became darker, for tinder to light a 
candle. I studied incessantly, dashing out at inter- 
vals to lake or woods, and returning after wild 
activity, with increased zest to the printed world. 
My mind appeared to resume a faculty it had sus- 
pended, and to resume with incredible power. Mag- 
netized by books, I cared for nothing else. That 
first winter I gained hold on English and Latin, 
on French reading, mathematics, geography, and 
history. My master was an Oxford man, and when 
roused from dawdling, a scholar. He grew fool- 
ishly proud and fond of what he called my prodig- 
ious advance. 

De Chaumont’s library was a luscious field, and 
Doctor Chantry was permitted to turn me loose in 
it, so that the books were almost like my own. I 
carried them around hid in my breast; my coat- 
skirts were weighted with books. There were Plut- 
arch’s Lives in the old French of Amyot, over 
which I labored; a French translation of Homer; 
Corneille’s tragedies; Rochefoucauld; Montaigne’s 
essays, in ten volumes; Thomson’s poems, and 
Chesterfield’s letters, in English ; the life of 
Petrarch; three volumes of Montesquieu’s works; 
and a Bible; which I found greatly to my taste. It 
was a wide and catholic taste. 

De Chaumont spent nearly all that autumn and 


Iv AZ A RRB 


79 


winter in Castorland, where he was building his 
new manor and founding his settlement called Le 
Rayville. As soon as I became a member of his 
household his patriarchal kindness was extended to 
me, though he regarded me simply as an ambitious 
half-breed. 

The strong place which he had built for his first 
holding in the wilderness thus grew into a cloistered 
school for me. It has vanished from the spot where 
it stood, but I shall forever see it between lake and 
forest. 

Annabel de Chaumont openly hated the isolation 
of the place, and was happy only when she could 
fill it with guests. But Madame de Ferrier evidently 
loved it, remaining there with Paul and Ernestine. 
Sometimes I did not see her for days together. But 
Mademoiselle de Chaumont, before her departure 
to her Baltimore convent for the winter, amused 
herself with my education. She brought me an old 
book of etiquette in which young gentlemen were 
admonished not to lick their fingers or crack bones 
with their teeth at table. Nobody else being at 
hand she befooled with Doctor Chantry and me, and 
I saw for the first time, with surprise, an old man's 
infatuation with a poppet. 

It was this foolishness of her brother’s which 
Miss Chantry could not forgive De Chaumont’s 
daughter. She was incessant in her condemnation, 
yet unmistakably fond in her English way of the 
creature she condemned. Annabel loved to drag 
my poor master in flowery chains before his relative. 


8o 


Iv AZ ARRB 


She would make wreaths of crimson leaves for his 
bald head, and exhibit him grinning like a weak- 
eyed Bacchus. Once he sat doting beside her at 
twilight on a bench of the wide gallery while his 
sister, near by, kept guard over their talk. I passed 
them, coming back from my tramp, with a glowing 
branch in my hand. For having set my teeth in 
the scarlet tart udder of a sumach, all frosted with 
delicate fretwork, I could not resist bringing away 
some of its color. 

*‘Did you get that for me?” called Annabel. I 
mounted the steps to give it to her, and she said, 
‘Thank you, Lazarre Williams. Every day you 
learn some pretty new trick. Doctor Chantry has 
not brought me anything from the woods in a long 
while.” 

Doctor Chantry stirred his gouty feet and looked 
hopelessly out at the landscape. 

“Sit here by your dearest Annabel,” said Made- 
moiselle de Chaumont. 

Her governess breathed the usual sigh of disgust. 

I sat by my dearest Annabel, anxious to light my 
candle and open my books. She shook the frizzes 
around her cheeks and buried her hands under the 
scarlet branch in her lap. 

“Do you know, Lazarre Williams, I have to leave 
you?” 

I said I was sorry to hear it. 

“Yes, I have to go back to my convent, and drag 
poor Miss Chantry with me, though she is a heretic 
and hates the forms of pur religion. But she has 


Iv AZ ARRE 


8i 


to submit, and so do I, because my father will have 
nobody but an English governess.” 

“Mademoiselle,” spoke Miss Chantry, “I would 
suggest that you sit on a chair by yourself.” 

“What, on one of those little crowded chairs?” 
said Annabel. 

She reached out her sly hand for mine and drew 
it under cover of the sumach branch. 

“I have been thinking about your rank a great 
deal, Lazarre Williams, and wondering what it is.” 

“If you thought more about your own it would be 
better,” said Miss Chantry. 

“We are Americans here,” said Annabel. “All 
are equal, and some are free. I am only equal. 
Must your dearest Annabel obey you about the chair. 
Miss Chantry?” 

“I said I would suggest that you sit on a chair 
by yourself.” 

“I will, dear. You know I always follow your 
suggestions.” 

I felt the hand that held mine tighten its grip 
in a despairing squeeze. Annabel suddenly raised 
the branch high above her head with both arms, 
and displayed Doctor Chantry^s hand and mine 
clasped tenderly in her lap. She laughed until even 
Miss Chantry was infected, and the doctor tittered 
and wiped his eyes. 

“Watch your brother. Miss Chantry — don’t watch 
me ! You thought he was squeezing my hand — ^and 
he thought so too! Lazarre Williams is just out of 


82 


Iv AZ ARRK 


the woods and doesn’t know any better. But 
Doctor Chantry — he is older than my father!” 

^‘We wished to oblige you, mademoiselle,” I said. 
But the poor English gentleman tittered on in help- 
less admiration. He told me privately — ‘‘I never 
saw another girl like her. So full of spirits, and 
so frank!” 

Doctor Chantry did not wear his disfiguring horn 
spectacles when Annabel was near. He wrote a 
great deal of poetry while the blow of parting from 
her was hanging over him, and read it to me of 
mornings, deprecating my voiceless contempt. I 
would hear him quarreling with a servant in the 
hall; for the slightest variation in his comfort en- 
gendered rages in him that were laughable. Then 
he entered, red-nosed, red-eyed, and bloodlessly 
shivering, with a piece of paper covered by innu- 
merable small characters. 

‘‘Good morning, my lad,” he would say. 

“Good morning, Doctor Chantry,” I answered. 

“Here are a few little stanzas which I have just 
set down. If you have no objection I will read 
them.” 

I must have listened like a trapped bear, sitting 
up and longing to get at him, for he usually fin- 
ished humbly, folding his paper and putting it away 
in his breast. There was reason to believe that he 
spent valuable hours copying all these verses for 
Annabel de Chaumont. But there is no evidence 
that she carried them with her when she and her 
governess departed in a great coach all gilt and 


Iv AZ ARRK 


83 


padding. Servants and a wagon load of baggage 
and supplies accompanied De Chaumont’s daughter 
on the long journey to her Baltimore convent. 

Shaking in every nerve and pale as a sheet, my 
poor master watched her out of sight. He said he 
should not see his sister again until spring; and 
added that he was a fool, but when a creature of 
light came across his path he could not choose but 
worship. His affections had been blighted by a dis- 
appointment in youth, but he had thought he might 
at least bask in passing sunshine, though fated to 
unhappiness. I was ashamed to look at him, or to 
give any sign of overhearing his weakness, and 
exulted mightily in my youth, despising the enchant- 
ments of a woman. Madame de Ferrier watched 
the departure from another side of the gallery, and 
did not witness my poor master’s breakdown. She 
came and talked to him, and took more notice of 
him than I had ever seen her take before. 

In a day or two he was quite himself, plodding at 
the lessons, suddenly furious at the servants, and 
giving me fretful histories of his wrongs when bran- 
dy and water were not put by his bedside at night, 
or a warming-pan was not passed between his 
sheets. 

About this time I began to know without being 
taught and without expressing it in words, that 
there is a natural law of environment which makes 
us grow like the company we keep. During the 
first six months of my stay in De Chaumont’s house 
Doctor Chantry was my sole companion. I looked 


84 


Iv AZ ARRK 


anxiously into the glass on my dressing-table, dread- 
ing to see a reflection of his pettiness. I saw a face 
with large features, eager in expression. The eyes 
were hazel, and bluish around the iris rims, the nose 
aquiline, the chin full, the head high, and round 
templed. The hair was sunny and wavy, not dark 
and tight fitting like that of my Indian father and 
mother. There would be always a scar across my 
eyebrow. I noticed that the lobe of my ear was not 
deeply divided from my head, but fashioned close 
to it in triangular snugness, though I could not 
have said so. Regular life and abundant food, and 
the drive of purpose, were developing all my parts. 
I took childish pleasure in watching my Indian boy- 
hood go, and vital force mounting every hour. 

Time passed without marking until January. The 
New England Thanksgiving we had not then heard 
of; and Christmas was a holy day of the church. 
On a January afternoon Madame de Ferrier sent 
Ernestine to say that she wished to see Doctor 
Chantry and me. 

My master was asleep by the fire in an armchair. 
I looked at his disabled feet, and told Ernestine I 
would go with her alone. She led me to a wing of 
the house. 

Even an Indian boy could see through Annabel 
de Chaumont. But who might fathom Madame de 
Ferrier? Every time I saw her, and that was sel- 
dom, some change made her another Madame de 
Ferrier, as if she were a thousand women in one. 
I saw her first a white clad spirit, who stood by my 


Iv A.Z ARRB 


85 


head when I awoke ; next, a lady who rose up and 
bowed to me ; then a beauty among dancers ; after- 
wards, a little girl running across the turf, or a kind 
woman speaking to my master. Often she was a dis- 
tant figure, coming and going with Paul and Ernes- 
tine in De Chaumont’s woods. If we encountered, 
she always said, “Good day, monsieur,^' and I an- 
swered “Good day, madame.’’ 

I had my meals alone with Doctor Chantry, and 
never questioned this, his custom, from the day I 
entered the house. De Chaumont’s chief, who was 
over the other servants, and had come with him 
from his chateau near Blois, waited upon me, while 
Doctor Chantry was^^rved by another man named 
Jean. My master fretted at Jean. The older 
servant paid no attention to that. 

Madame de Ferrier and I had lived six months 
under the same roof as strangers. Consciousness 
plowed such a direct furrow in front of me that I 
saw little on either side of it. She was a name, that 
I found written in the front of the missal, and 
copied over and over down foolscap paper in my 
practice of script : 

“Eagle Madeleine Marie de Ferrier.’^ 

“Eagle Madeleine Marie de Ferrier.” 

She stood in her sitting room, which looked upon 
the lake, and before a word passed between us I 
saw she was unlike any of her former selves. Her 
features were sharpened and whitened. She looked 
beyond me with gray colored eyes, and held her 
lips apart. 


86 


AZ ARRK 


have news. The Indian brought me this letter 
from Albany.’’ 

I could not help glancing curiously at the sheet 
in her hand, spotted on the back with broken red 
wafers. It was th6 first letter I had ever seen. 
Doctor Chantry told me he received but one during 
the winter from his sister, and paid two Spanish 
reals in postage for it, besides a fee and some food 
and whiskey to the Indian who made the journey to 
deliver such parcels. It was a trying and an im- 
portant experience to receive a letter. I was sur- 
prised that Madame Tank had recommended my 
sending one into the Wisconsin country. 

‘‘Count de Chaumont is gone; and I must have 
advice.” 

“Madame,” I said, “Doctor Chantry was asleep, 
but I will wake him and bring him here.” 

“No. I will tell you. Monsieur, my Cousin 
Philippe is dead.” 

It might have shocked me more if I had known 
she had a Cousin Philippe. I said stupidly: 

“Is he?” 

“Cousin Philippe was my husband, you under- 
stand.” 

“Madame, are you married?” 

“Of course !” she exclaimed. And I confessed to 
myself that in no other way could Paul be accounted 
for. 

“But you are here alone?” 

Two large tears ran down her face. 

“You should understand the De Ferriers are 




87. 


poor, monsieur, unless something can be saved 
from our estates that the Bonapartes have given 
away. Cousin Philippe went to see if we could re- 
cover any part of them. Count de Chaumont 
thought it a favorable time. But he was too old for 
such a journey; and the disappointments at the end 
of it.’^ 

*‘01dl Was he old, madame?” 

^‘Almost as old as my father.'^ 

^‘But you are very young.” 

“I was only thirteen when my father on his death- 
bed married me to Cousin Philippe. We were the 
last of our family. Now Cousin Philippe is dead 
and Paul and I are orphans !” 

She felt her loss as Paul might have felt his. He 
was gurgling at Ernestine’s knee in the next room. 

‘‘I want advice,” she said ; and I stood ready to 
give it, as a man always is ; the more positively be- 
cause I knew nothing of the world. 

"‘Cousin Philippe said I must go to France, for 
Paul’s sake, and appeal myself to the empress, who 
has great influence over the emperor. His com- 
mand was to go at once.” 

“Madame, you cannot go in midwinter.” 

“Must I go at all?” she cried out passionately. 
“Why don’t you tell me a De Perrier shall not crawl 
the earth before a Bonaparte! You — of all men! 
We are poor and exiles because we were royalists 
— ^are royalists — we always shall be royalists! I 
would rather make a wood-chopper of Paul than a 
serf to this Napoleon !” 

She checked herself, and motioned to a chair. 


88 


L AZ ARRB 


'‘Sit down, monsieur. Pardon me that I have 
kept you standing.” 

I placed the chair for her, but she declined it, and 
we continued to face each other. 

“Madame,” I said, “you seem to blame me for 
something. What have I done?” 

“Nothing, monsieur.” 

“I will now ask your advice. What do you want 
me to do that I have not done ?” 

“Monsieur, you are doing exactly what I want 
you to do.” 

“Then you are not displeased with me?” 

“I am more pleased with you every time I see you. 
Your advice is good. I cannot go in midwinter.” 

“Are you sure your cousin wanted you to make 
this journey?” 

“The notary says so in this letter. Philippe 
died in the farm-house of one of our peasants, and 
the new masters could not refuse him burial in the 
church where De Per riers have lain for hundreds 
of years. He was more fortunate than my father.” 

This interview with Madame de Perrier in which 
I cut so poor a figure, singularly influenced me. 
It made me restless, as if something had entered 
my blood. In January the real spring begins, for 
then sap starts, and the lichens seem to quicken. I 
felt I was young, and rose up against lessons all 
day long and part of the night. I rushed in haste 
to .the woods or the frozen lake, and wanted to do 
mighty deeds without knowing what to undertake. 
More than anything else I wanted friends of my 


89 


Iv A Z A R R K 

own age. To see Doctor Chantry dozing and hear 
him grumbling, no longer remained endurable; for 
he reminded me that my glad days were due and I 
was not receiving them. Worse than that, instead 
of proving grateful for all his services, I became in- 
tolerant of his opinion. 

''De Chaumont will marry her,” he said when he 
heard of Madame de Ferrier’s widowhood. “She 
will never be obliged to sue to the Bonapartes. The 
count is as fond of her as he is of his daughter.” 

“Must a woman marry a succession of fathers?” 
— I wanted to know. 

My master pointed out that the count was a very 
well favored and youthful looking man. His mar- 
riage to Madame de Ferrier became even more dis- 
tasteful. She and her poppet were complete by 
themselves. Wedding her to any one was casting 
indignity upon her. 

Annabel de Chaumont was a countess and Mad- 
ame de Ferrier was a marquise. These names, I 
understood, meant that they were ladies to be served 
and protected. De Chaumont’s daughter was served 
and protected, and as far as he was allowed to do so, 
he served and protected the daughter of his fellow 
countryman. 

“But the pride of emigres,” Doctor Chantry said, 
“was an old story in the De Chaumont household. 
There were some Saint-Michels who lived in a 
cabin, strictly on their own means, refusing the 
count’s help, yet they had followed him to Le Ray- 
ville in Castorland. Madame de Ferrier lived where 


90 


Iv AZ ARRK 


her husband had placed her, in a wing of De Chau- 
mont’s house, refusing to be waited on by anybody 
but Ernestine, paying what her keeping cost ; when 
she was a welcome guest/’ 

My master hobbled to see her. And I began to 
think about her day and night, as I had thought 
about my books ; an isolated little girl in her early 
teens, mother and widow, facing a future like a 
dead wall, with daily narrowing fortunes. The se- 
clusion in which she lived made her sacred like a 
religious person. I did not know what love was, 
and I never intended to dote, like my poor master. 
Before the end of January, however, such a change 
worked in me that I was as fierce for the vital world 
as I had been for the world of books. 


VII 


A TRICK of the eyes, a sweet turning of the 
mouth corners, the very color of the hair — 
some irresistible physical trait, may compel a 
preference in us that we cannot control; espe- 
cially when we first notice these traits in a woman. 
My crying need grew to be the presence of Madame 
de Ferrier. It was youth calling to youth in that 
gorgeous winter desert. 

Her windows were hoar-frost furred without and 
curtained within. Though I knew where they were 
I got nothing by tramping past and glancing up. I 
used to saunter through the corridor that led to her 
rooms, startled yet pleased if Ernestine came out on 
an errand. Then I would close my book and nod, 
and she would courtesy. 

“Oh, by the way,'^ I would turn to remark, “I 
was passing, and thought I would knock and ask 
how Madame de Ferrier is to-day. But you can 
tell me.’^ 

When assured of Madame de Ferrier's health I 
would continue: 

“And Paul— how is Paul?’’ 

Paul carried himself marvelously. He was learn- 
ing to walk. Ernestine believed the lie about knock- 
ing, and I felt bolder every time I told it. 

The Indian part of me thought of going hunting 

91 


92 


\ 

Iv ARRK 

and laying slaughtered game at their door. But it 
was a doubtful way of pleasing, and the bears hi- 
bernated, and the deer were perhaps a day’s journey 
in the white wastes. 

I used to sing in the clear sharp air when I took 
to the frozen lake and saw those heights around me, 
I look back upon that winter, across what befell me 
afterwards, as a time of perfect peace ; before virgin 
snows melted, when the world was a white expanse 
of innocence. 

Our weather-besieged manor was the center of it. 
Vaguely I knew there was life on the other side of 
great seas, and that New York, Boston, Philadel- 
phia, Baltimore and New Orleans were cities in 
which men moved and had their being. My country, 
the United States, had bought from Napoleon Bona- 
parte a large western tract called Louisiana, which 
belonged to France. A new state named Ohio was 
the last added to the roll of commonwealths. News- 
papers, which the Indian runner once or twice 
brought us from Albany, chronicled the doings of 
Aaron Burr, Vice-President of the United States, 
who had recently drawn much condemnation on 
himself by a brutal duel. 

“Aaron Burr was here once,” said my master. 

“What is he like ?” I inquired. 

“A lady-killer.” 

“But he is next in dignity to the President.” 

Doctor Chantry sniffed. 

“What is even the President of a federation like 
this, certain to fall to pieces some fine day!” 


AZ ARRB 


93 


I felt offended ; for my instinct was to weld peo- 
ple together and hold them so welded. 

“If I were a president or a king/’ I told him, 
“and men conspired to break the state, instead of 
parleying I would hang them up like dogs.” 

“Would you?” 

Despising the country in which he found himself, 
my master took no trouble to learn its politics. But 
'since history had rubbed against us in the person 
of Jerome Bonaparte, I wanted to know what the 
world was doing. 

“Colonel Burr had a pleasant gentleman with him 
at the manor,” Doctor Chantry added. “His name 
was Harmon Blennerhassett; a man of good Eng- 
lish stock, though having a wild Irish strain, which 
is deplorable.” 

The best days of that swift winter were Sundays, 
when my master left off snapping, and stood up 
reverently in our dining-room to read his church 
service. Madame de Ferrier and Paul and Ernes- 
*tine came from their apartment to join in the Protes- 
tant ritual ; and I sat beside them so constantly that 
the Catholic priest who arrived at Easter to dress 
up the souls of the household, found me in a state 
of heresy. 

I have always thought a woman needs a dark 
capping of hair, whatever her complexion, to em- 
phasize her beauty. For light locks seem to fray 
out to nothing, and waste to air instead of fitly 
binding a lovely countenance. Madame de Per- 
rier’s hair was of exactly the right color. Her eye- 


94 


Iv AZ ARRB 


brows were distinct dark lines, and the lashes were 
so dense that you noticed the curling rim they made 
around her gray eyes. Whether the gift of looking 
to your core is beauty or not, I can only say she had 
it. And I could not be sworn what her features 
were; such life and expression played over and 
changed them every moment. 

As to her figure, it was just in its roundness and 
suppleness, and had a lightness of carriage that I 
have never seen equaled. There was charm in look- 
ing at without approaching her that might have 
satisfied me indefinitely, if De Chaumont had not 
come home. 

Ernestine herself made the first breach in that 
sacred reserve. The old woman met me in the hall, 
courtesied, and passed as usual. I turned behind 
the broad ribbons which hung down her back from 
cap to heels, and said : 

“Oh, by the way, Ernestine, how is Madame de 
Ferrier? I was going to knock ’’ 

And Ernestine courtesied again, and opened the 
door, standing aside for me to enter. 

Madame de Ferrier sat on a bearskin before the 
hearth with Paul, who climbed over her and gave 
her juicy kisses. There was a deep wood fire, up- 
held by very tall andirons having cups in their tops, 
which afterwards I learned were called posset cups. 
She was laughing so that her white teeth showed, 
and she made me welcome like a playmate; re- 
maining on the rug, and bidding Ernestine set a 
chair for me near the fire. 


Iv A Z A R R e: 


95 


is very kind of you to spare me some time, 
monsieur,” said Madame de Ferrier. She admon- 
ished Paul — “Don’t choke your little mother.” 

I told her boldly that nothing but the dread of 
disturbing her kept me from knocking every day. 
We had always walked into the lodges without 
knocking, and I dwelt on this as one of my new 
accomplishments. 

“I am not studying night and day,” she answered. 
“Sophie Saint-Michel and her mother were my 
teachers, and they are gone now, one to heaven and 
the other to Castorland.” 

Remembering what Annabel de Chaumont 
said about holy Sophie I inquired if she had been 
religious. 

“The Saint-Michels were better than religious; 
both mother and daughter were eternally patient 
with the poor count, whose troubles unsettled his 
reason. They had no dear old Ernestine, and were 
reduced to the hardest labor. I was a little child 
when we came to America, yet even then the spirit 
of the Saint-Michels seemed to me divine.” 

“I wish I could remember when I was a little 
child.” 

“Can you not recall anything?” 

“I have a dim knowledge of objects.” 

“What objects?” 

“St. Regis church, and my taking first commu- 
nion ; and the hunting, the woods and water, boats, 
snowshoes, the kind of food I liked; Skenedonk 


96 


Iv AZ ARRB 


and all my friends — but I scarcely knew them as 
persons until I awoke/’ 

/‘What is your first distinct recollection?” 

“Your face.” 

“Mine?” 

“Yes, yours, madame. I saw it above me when 
you came into the room at night.” 

She looked past me and said : 

“You have fortunately missed some of the most 
terrible events that ever happened in the world, 
monsieur. My mother and father, my two brothers, 
Cousin Philippe and I, were in prison together. 
My mother and brothers were taken, and we were 
left.” 

I understood that she spoke of the Terror, about 
which I was eager to know every then unwritten 
detail. Doctor Chantry had told me many things. 
It fascinated me far more than ancient history, 
which my master was inclined to press upon me. 

“How can you go back to France, madame?” 

“That’s what I ask myself every day. That life 
was like a strange nightmare. Yet there was our 
chateau, Mont-Louis, two or three days’ journey 
east from Paris. The park was so beautiful. I 
think of it, and of Paul.” 

“And what about this country, madame? Is 
there nothing beautiful here?” 

“The fact has been impressed on me, monsieur, 
that it does not belong to me. I am an emigre. In 
city or country my father and Cousin Philippe kept 
me with them. I have seen nothing of young peo- 
pie, except at balls. We had no intimate friends. 


ly AZ ARRK 


97 


We were always going back. I am still waiting to 
go back, monsieur — and refusing to go if I must.’’ 

It was plain that her life had been as restricted 
as mine, though the bonds were different She was 
herded with old people, made a wife and mother 
while yet a child, nursed in shadow instead of in the 
hot sunshine which produced Annabel de Chau- 
mont. 

After that we met each other as comrades meet, 
and both of us changed like the face of nature, 
when the snow went and warm winds came. 

This looking at her without really approaching 
was going on innocently when one day Count de 
Chaumont rode up to the manor, his horse and his 
attendant servants and horses covered with mud, 
filling the place with a rush of life. 

He always carried himself as if he felt extremely 
welcome in this world. And though a man ought to 
be welcome in his own house, especially when he 
has made it a comfortable refuge for outsiders, I 
met him with the secret resentment we bear an 
interloper. 

He looked me over from head to foot with more 
interest than he had ever before shown. 

‘‘We are getting on, we are getting on! Is it 
Doctor Chantry, or the little madame, or the winter 
housing? Our white blood is very much in evi- 
dence. When Chief Williams comes back to the 
summer hunting he will not know his boy.” 

“The savage is inside yet, monsieur,” I told him. 
“Scratch me and see.” 


98 


Iv AZ ARRK 


‘'Not I,” he laughed. 

“It is late for thanks, but I will now thank you 
for taking me into your house.” 

“He has learned gratitude for little favors ! That 
is Madame de Perrier’s work.” 

“I hope I may be able to do something that will 
square our accounts.” 

“That’s Doctor Chantry’s work. He is full of be- 
nevolent intentions — and never empties himself. 
When you have learned all your master knows, what 
are you going to do with it ?” 

“I am going to teach our Indians.” 

“Good. You have a full day’s work before you. 
Founding an estate in the wilderness is nothing 
compared to that. You have more courage than De 
Chaumont.” 

Whether the spring or the return of De Chau- 
mont drove me out, I could no longer stay indoors, 
but rowed all day long on the lake or trod the 
quickening woods. Before old Pierre could get au- 
dience with his house accounts, De Chaumont was 
in Madame de Perrier’s rooms, inspecting the wafer 
blotched letter. He did not appear as depressed as 
he should have been by the death of his old friend. 

“These French have no hearts,” I told Doctor 
Chantry. 

He took off his horn spectacles and wiped his 
eyes, responding: 

“But they find the way to ours !” 

Slipping between islands in water paths that 
wound as a meadow stream winds through land, I 


Iv AZ ARRB 


99 


tried to lose myself from the uneasy pain which 
followed me everywhere. 

There may be people who look over the scheme of 
their lives with entire complacence. Mine has been 
the outcome of such strange misfortunes as to fur- 
nish evidence that there is another fate than the 
fate we make ourselves. In that early day I felt 
the unseen lines tighten around me. I was nothing 
but a young student of unknown family, able to read 
and write, to talk a little English, with some knowl- 
edge of history, geography, mathematics, and 
Latin. Strength and scope came by atoms. I did 
not know then as I know now that I am a slow 
grower, even when making gigantic effort. An oak 
does not accumulate rings with more deliberation 
than I change and build myself. 

My master told me a few days later that the count 
decreed Madame de Perrier must go back to 
France. He intended to go with her and push her 
claim; and his daughter and his daughter’s gov- 
erness would bear them company. Doctor Chantry 
and I contemplated each other, glaring in mutual 
solemnity. His eyes were red and watery, and the 
nose sharpened its cone. 

^When are they going?” I inquired. 

‘‘As soon as arrangements for comfortable sailing 
can be made. I wish I were going back to England. 
I shall have to save twenty-five years before I can 
go, but the fund is started.” 

If I saved a hundred and twenty-five years I 
could not go anywhere ; for I had nothing to save. 

LofC. 


100 


Iv AZ ARRK 


The worthlessness of civilization rushed over me. 
When I was an Indian the boundless world was 
mine. I could build a shelter, and take food and 
clothes by my strength and skill. My boat or my 
strong legs carried me to all boundaries. 

I did not know what ailed me, but chased by 
these thoughts to the lake, I determined not to go 
back again to De Chaumont’s house. I was sick, 
and my mother woods opened her arms. As if to 
show me what I had thrown away to haunt the 
cages of men, one of those strange sights which is 
sometimes seen in that region appeared upon the 
mountain. No one can tell who lights the torch. A 
thread of fire ran up like an opening seam, broad- 
ened, and threw out pink ravelings. The flame 
wavered, paled by daylight, but shielding itself with 
strong smoke, and leaped from ledge to ledge. I 
saw mighty pines, standing one moment green, and 
the next, columns of fire. So the mass diverged, or 
ran together until a mountain of fire stood against 
the sky, and stretched its reflection, a glowing fur- 
nace, across the water. 

Flecks of ash sifted on me in the boat. I felt my- 
self a part of it, as I felt myself a part of the many 
sunsets which had burned out on that lake. Before 
night I penetrated to the heart of an island so dense- 
ly overgrown, even in spring when trees had no 
curtains, that you were lost as in a thousand mile 
forest. I camped there in a dry ravine, with hem- 
lock boughs under and over me, and next day rolled 




lOI 


broken logs, and cut poles and evergreens with my 
knife, to make a lodge. 

It was boyish, unmannerly conduct; but the 
world had broken to chaos around me ; and I set 
up the rough refuge with skill. Some books, my 
fish line and knife, were always in the boat with me, 
as well as a box of tinder. I could go to the shore, 
get a breakfast out of the water, and cook it myself. 
Yet all that day I kept my fast, having no appe- 
tite. 

Perhaps in the bottom of my heart I expected 
somebody to be sent after me, bearing large induce- 
ments to return. We never can believe we are not 
valuable to our fellows. Pierre or Jean, or some 
other servants in the house, might perforce nose me 
out. I resolved to hide if such an envoy approached 
and to have speech with nobody. We are more or 
less ashamed of our secret wounds, and I was not 
going to have Pierre or Jean report that I sat sulk- 
ing in the woods on an island. 

It was very probable that De Chaumont’s house- 
hold gave itself no trouble about my disappearance. 
I sat on my hemlock floor until the gray of twilight 
and studied Latin, keeping my mind on the text; 
save when a squirrel ventured out and glided bushy 
trained and sinuous before me, or the marble birches 
with ebony limbs, drew me to gloat on them. The 
white birch is a woman and a goddess. I have 
associated her forever with that afternoon. Her 
poor cousin the poplar, often so like her as to deceive 
you until ashen bough and rounded leaf instruct the 


102 




eye, always grows near her like a protecting servant. 
The poor cousin rustles and fusses. But my calm 
lady stands in perfect beauty, among pines straight 
as candles, never tremulous, never trivial. All ala- 
baster and ebony, she glows from a distance; as, 
thinking of her, I saw another figure glow through 
the loop-holes of the woods. 

It was Madame de Ferrier. 


VIII 


A LEAP of the heart and dizziness shot through 
me and blurred my sight. The reality of 
Madame de FerriePs coming to seek me surpassed 
all imaginings. 

She walked with quick accustomed step, parting 
the second growth in her way, having tracked me 
from the boat. Seeing my lodge in the ravine she 
paused, her face changing as the lake changes ; and 
caught her breath. I stood exultant and ashamed 
down to the ground. 

‘‘Monsieur, what are you doing here?” Madame 
de Ferrier cried out. 

“Living, madame,” I responded. 

“Living ? Do you mean you have returned to your 
old habits?” 

“I have returned to the woods, madame.” 

“You do not intend to stay here?” 

“Perhaps.” 

“You must not do it!” 

“What must I do?” 

“Come back to the house. You have given us 
much anxiety.” 

I liked the word “us” until I remembered it in- 
cluded Count de Chaumont. 

“Why did you come out here and hide your- 
self ?^^ 


103 


104 


L. AZ ARRK 


My conduct appeared contemptible. I looked 
mutely at her. 

''What offended you?’’ 

"Nothing, Madame.” 

"Did you want Doctor Chantry to lame himself 
hobbling around in search of you, and the count to 
send people out in every direction?” 

"No, madame.” 

"What explanation will you make to the count?” 

"None, madame.” I raised my head. "I may go 
out in the woods without asking leave of Count de 
Chaumont.” 

"He says you have forsaken your books and gone 
back to be an Indian.” 

I showed her the Latin book in my hand. She 
glanced slightly at it, and continued to make her 
gray eyes pass through my marrow. 

Shifting like a culprit, I inquired : 

"How did you know I was here?” 

"Oh, it was not hard to find you after I saw the 
boat. This island is not large.” 

"But who rowed you across the lake, madame?” 

"I came by myself, and nobody except Ernestine 
knows it. I can row a boat. I slipped through the 
tunnel, and ventured.” 

"Madame, I am a great fool. I am not worth 
your venturing.” 

"You are worth any danger I might encounter. 
But you should at least go back for me.” 

"I will do anything for you, madame. But why 
should I go back ? — ^you will not long be there.” 


L. AZ ARRB 


105 


^‘What does that matter? The important thing 
is that you should not lapse again into the Indian.” 

'Ts any life but the life of an Indian open to me, 
madame ?” 

She struck her hands together with a scream. 

‘‘Louis! Sire!” 

Startled, I dropped the book and it sprawled at 
her feet like the open missal. She had returned so 
unexpectedly to the spirit of our first meeting. 

“O, if you knew what you are ! During my whole 
life your name has been cherished by my family. 
We believed you would sometime come to your own. 
Believe in yourself !” 

I seemed almost to remember and perceive what 
I was — as you see in mirage one inverted boat poised 
on another, and are not quite sure, and the strange 
thing is gone. 

Perhaps I was less sure of the past because I was 
so sure of the present. A wisp of brown mist set- 
tling among the trees spread cloud behind her. What 
I wanted was this woman, to hide in the woods 
for my own. I could feed and clothe her, deck her 
with necklaces of garnets from the rocks, and 
wreaths of the delicate sand-wort flower. She said 
she would rather make Paul a woodchopper than a 
suppliant, taking the constitutional oath. I could 
make him a hunter and a fisherman. Game, bass, 
trout, pickerel, grew for us in abundance. I saw 
this vision with a single eye; it looked so pos- 
sible! All the crude imaginings of youth colored 


io6 


Iv AZ AR RR 


the spring woods with vivid beauty. My face be- 
trayed me, and she spoke to me coldly. 

'‘Is that your house, monsieur?” 

I said it was. 

“And you slept there last night ?” 

“I can build a much better one.” 

“What did you have for dinner ?” 

“Nothing.” 

“What did you have for breakfast ?” 

“Nothing.” 

Evidently the life I proposed to myself to offer 
her would not suit my lady ! 

She took a lacquered box from the cover of her 
wrappings, and moved down the slope a few steps. 

“Come here to your mother and get your sup- 
per.” 

I felt tears rush to my eyes. She sat down, spread 
a square of clean fringed linen upon the ground, 
and laid out crusty rounds of buttered bread that 
were fragrant in the springing fragrance of the 
woods, firm slices of cold meat, and a cunning pastry 
which instantly maddened me. I was ashamed to be 
such a wolf. 

We sat with our forest table between us and ate 
together. 

“I am hungry myself,” she said. 

A glorified veil descended on the world. If even- 
ing had paused while that meal was in progress it 
would not have surprised me. There are half hours 
that dilate to the importance of centuries. But when 
she had encouraged me to eat everything to the last 


L A Z A R R B 107 

crumb, she shook the fringed napkin, gathered up 
the lacquered box, and said she must be gone. 

'‘Monsieur, I have overstepped the bounds of be- 
havior in coming after you. The case was too 
urgent for consideration of myself. I must hurry 
back, for the count’s people would not understand 
my secret errand through the tunnel. Will you 
show yourself at the house as soon as possible?” 

I told her humbly that I would. 

"But let me put you in the boat, madame.” 

She shook her head. "You may follow, after I 
am out of sight. If you fail to follow” — she turned 
in the act of departing and looked me through. 

I told her I would not fail. 

When Madame de Ferrier disappeared beyond 
the bushes I sat down and waited with my head 
between my hands, still seeing upon closed eyelids 
her figure, the scant frock drawn around it, her cap 
of dark hair under a hood, her face moving from 
change to change. And whether I sat a year or a 
minute, clouds had descended when I looked, as they 
often did in that lake gorge. So I waited no longer, 
but followed her. 

The fog was brown, and capped the evening like 
a solid dome, pressing down to the earth, and twist- 
ing smoke fashion around my feet. It threw sinu- 
ous arms in front of me as a thing endowed with 
life and capable of molding itself; and when I 
reached my boat and pushed off on the water, a vast 
mass received and enveloped me. 

More penetrating than its clamminess was the 


io8 Iv A Z A R R B 

thought that Madame de Ferrier was out in it 
alone. 

I tried one of the long calls we sometimes used in 
hunting. She might hear, and understand that I 
was near to help her. But it was shouting against 
many walls. No effort pierced the muffling sub- 
stance which rolled thickly against the lungs. Re- 
membering it was possible to override smaller craft, 
I pulled with caution, and so bumped lightly against 
the boat that by lucky chance hovered in my track. 

^‘Is it you, madame?’^ I asked. 

She hesitated. 

^'Is it you, monsieur?” 

‘‘Yes.” 

“I think I am lost. There is no shore. The fog 
closed around me so soon. I was waiting for it to 
lift a little.” 

“It may not lift until morning, madame. Let me 
tie your boat to mine.” 

“Do you know the way?” • 

“There is no way. We shall have to feel for the 
shore. But Lake George is narrow, and I know 
it well.” 

“I want to keep near you.” 

“Come into my boat, and let me tie the other one 
astern.” 

She hesitated again, but decided, “That would 
be best.” 

I drew the frail shells together — they seemed very 
frail above such depths — and helped her cross the 
edges. We were probably the only people on Lake 


AZ ARRK 


109 


George. Tinder lighted in one boat would scarcely 
have shown us the other, though in the sky an oval 
moon began to make itself seen amidst rags of fog. 
The dense eclipse around us and the changing light 
overhead were very weird. 

Madame de Terrier’s hands chilled mine, and she 
shook in her thin cape and hood. Our garments 
were saturated. I felt moisture trickling down my 
hair and dropping on my shoulders. 

She was full of vital courage, resisting the deadly 
chill. This was not a summer fog, lightly to be 
traversed. It went dank through the bones. When 
I had helped her to a bench, remembering there was 
nothing dry to wrap around her, I slipped off my 
coat and forcibly added its thickness to her shoul- 
ders. 

“Do you think I will let you do that, monsieur?’^ 

My teeth chattered and shocked together so it 
was impossible to keep from laughing, as I told 
her I always preferred to be coatless when I rowed 
a boat. 

We could see each other by the high light that 
sometimes gilded the face, and sometimes was tar- 
nished almost to eclipse. Madame de Terrier crept 
forward, and before I knew her intention, cast my 
garment again around me. I helped the boat shift 
its balance so she would have to grasp at me for 
support ; the chilled round shape of her arm in my 
hand sent waves of fire through me. With brazen 
cunning, moreover, that surprised myself, instead 
of pleading, I dictated. 


no 


Iv AZ ARRK 


"‘Sit beside me on the rower’s bench, madame, 
and the coat will stretch around both of us.” 

Like a child she obeyed. We were indeed reduced 
to saving the warmth of our bodies. I shipped my 
oars and took one for a paddle, bidding Madame de 
Ferrier to hold the covering in place while I felt for 
the shore. She did so, her arm crossing my breast, 
her soft body touching mine. She was cold and still 
as the cloud in which we moved ; but I was a god, 
riding triumphantly high above the world, satisfied 
to float through celestial regions forever, bearing in 
my breast an unquenchable coal of fire. 

The moon played tricks, for now she was astern, 
and now straight ahead, in that confusing wilderness 
of vapor. 

‘‘Madame,” I said to my companion, “why have 
you been persuaded to go back to France?” 

She drew a deep breath. 

“I have not been persuaded. I have been forced 
by circumstances. Paul’s future is everything.” 

“You said you would rather make him a wood- 
chopper than a suppliant to the Bonapartes.” 

“I would. But his rights are to be considered 
first. He has some small chance of regaining his 
inheritance through the influence of Count de 
Chaumont now. Hereafter there may be no chance. 
You know the fortunes and lands of all emigres 
were forfeited to the state. Ours have finally 
reached the hands of one of Napoleon’s officers. I 
do not know what will be done. I only know that 
Paul must never have cause to reproach me.” 


Iv AZ ARRE: 


III 


I was obliged to do my duty in my place 
as she was doing her duty in hers; but I wished 
the boat would sink, and so end all journeys to 
France. It touched shore, on the contrary, and I 
grasped a rock which jutted toward us. It might 
be the point of an island, it might be the eastern 
land, as I was inclined to believe, for the moon was 
over our right shoulders. 

Probing along with the oar I found a cove and a 
shallow bottom, and there I beached our craft with 
a great shove. 

'‘How good the earth feels underfoot!” said Ma- 
dame de Ferrier. We were both stiff. I drew the 
boats where they could not be floated away, and we 
turned our faces to the unknown. I took her unre- 
sisting arm to guide her, and she depended upon 
me. 

This day I look back at those young figures grop- 
ing through cloud as at disembodied and blessed 
spirits. The man’s intensest tenderness, restrained 
by his virginhood and his awe of the supple delicate 
shape at his side, was put forth only in her service. 
They walked against bushes. He broke a stick, and 
with it probed every yard of the ascent which they 
were obliged to make. Helping his companion from 
bush to log, from seam to seam of the riven slope, 
from ledge to ledge, he brought her to a level of 
high forest where the fog was thinner, and branches 
interlaced across their faces. 

The climb made Madame de Ferrier draw her 
breath quickly. She laughed when we ended it. 


II2 


1. AZ ARRB 


Though I knew the shores as well as a hunter, it 
was impossible to recognize any landmark. The 
trees, the moss, and forest sponge under our feet, 
the very rocks, were changed by that weird medium. 
And when the fog opened and we walked as 
through an endless tunnel of gray revolving stone, 
it was into a world that never existed before and 
would never exist again. 

There was no path. Creeping under and climbing 
over obstacles, sometimes inclosed by the white- 
ness of steam, sometimes walking briskly across 
lighted spaces, we reached a gorge smoking as the 
lake smoked in the chill of early mornings. Vapor 
played all its freaks on that brink. The edge had 
been sharply defined. But the fog shut around us 
like a curtain, and we dared not stir. 

Below, a medallion shaped rift widened out, and 
showed us a scene as I have since beheld such 
things appear upon the stage. Within the round 
changing frame of wispy vapor two men sat by a 
fire of logs and branches. We could smell wood 
smoke, and hear the branches crackle, convincing 
us the vision was real. Behind them stood a cabin 
almost as rude as my shelter on the island. 

One man was a grand fellow, not at all of the 
common order, though he was more plainly clothed 
than De Chaumont. His face was so familiar that 
I almost grasped recognition — but missed it. The 
whole cast was full and aquiline, and the lobe of his 
ear, as I noticed when light fell on his profile, sat 
close to his head like mine. 


IvAZ ARRK 


113 

The other man worked his feet upon the treadle 
of a small wheel, which revolved like a circular table 
in front of him, and on this he deftly touched some- 
thing which appeared to be an earthenware vessel. 
His thin fingers moved with spider swiftness, and 
shaped it with a kind of magic. He was a mad 
looking person, with an air of being tremendously 
driven by inner force. He wore mustaches the like 
of which I had never seen, carried back over his 
ears; and these hairy devices seemed to split his 
countenance in two crosswise. 

Some broken pottery lay on the ground, and a few 
vessels, colored and lustrous so they shone in the 
firelight, stood on a stump near him. 

The hollow was not a deep one, but if the men had 
been talking, their voices did not reach us until the 
curtain parted. 

“You are a great fool or a great rascal, or both, 
Bellenger,’' the superior man said. 

“Most people are, your highness,’' respoded the 
one at the wheel. He kept it going, as if his earth- 
enware was of more importance than the talk. 

“You are living a miserable life, roving about.” 

“Many other Frenchmen are no better off than I 
am, my prince.” 

“True enough. I’ve roved about myself.” 

“Did you turn schoolmaster in Switzerland, 
prince ?” 

“I did. My family are in Switzerland now.” 

“Some of the nobles were pillaged by their peas- ' 


Iv AZ ARRK 


1 14 

ants as well as by the government. But your house 
should not have lost everything.” 

“You are mistaken about our losses. The Or- 
leans Bourbons have little or no revenue left. Mon- 
sieur and Artois were the Bourbons able to maintain 
a court about them in exile. So you have to turn 
potter, to help support the idiot and yourself?” 

“Is your highness interested in art?” 

“What have I to do with art ?” 

“But your highness can understand how an idea 
will haunt a man. It is true I live a wretched life, 
but I amuse myself trying to produce a perfect vase. 
I have broken thousands. If a shape answers my 
expectations, that very shape is certain to crack in 
the burning or run in the glaze.” 

“Then you don’t make things to sell ?” 

“Oh, yes. I make noggins and crockery to sell in 
the towns. There is a kind of clay in these hills that 
suits me.” 

“The wonderful vase,” said the other yawning, 
“might perhaps interest me more if some facts were 
not pressing for discussion. I am a man of benevo- 
lent disposition, Bellenger.” 

“Your royal highness ” 

“Stop ! I have been a revolutionist, like my poor 
father, whose memory you were about to touch — 
and I forbid it. But I am a man whose will it is to 
do good. It is impossible I should search you out 
in America to harm my royal cousin. Now I want 
to know the truth about him.” 


Iv AZ ARRK 


115 

Madame de Ferrier had forgotten her breath. We 
both stood fastened on that scene in another world, 
guiltless of eavesdropping. 

The potter shifted his eyes from side to side, 
seeming to follow the burr of his vessel upon the 
wheel. 

^T find you with a creature I cannot recognize 
as my royal cousin. If this is he, sunk far lower 
than when he left France in your charge, why are 
two-thirds of his pension sent out from New York 
to another person, while you receive for his main- 
tenance only one-third?” 

The potter bounded from his wheel, letting the 
vessel spin off to destruction, and danced, stretch- 
ing his long mustaches abroad in both hands as the 
ancients must have rent their clothes. He cried that 
he had been cheated, stripped, starved. 

‘T thought they were straitened in Monsieur’s 
court,” he raged, ^'and they have been maintaining 
a false dauphin !” 

‘^As I said, Bellenger,” remarked his superior, 
*^you are either a fool or the greatest rascal I ever 
saw.” 

He looked at Bellenger attentively. 

'Wet why should you want to mix clues — and be 
rewarded with evident misery ? And how could you 
lose him out of your hand and remain unconscious 
of it? He was sent to the ends of the earth for 
safety — poor shattered child ! — and if he is safe else- 
where, why should you be pensioned to maintain 
another child ? They say how that a Bourbon never 


ii6 


Iv AZ ARRK 


learns anything ; but I protest that a Bourbon knows 
well what he does know. I feel sure my uncle 
intends no harm to the disabled heir. Who is guilty 
of this double dealing? I confess I don’t understand 
it.” 

Now whether by our long and silent stare we drew 
his regard, or chance cast his eye upward, the potter 
that instant saw us standing in the cloud above him. 
He dropped by his motionless wheel, all turned to 
clay himself. The eyeballs stuck from his face. He 
opened his mouth and screeched as if he had been 
started and could not leave off — 

‘The king ! — ^the king ! — the king ! — the king !” 


IX 


T he fool’s outcry startled me less than Ma- 
dame de Ferrier. She fell against me and 
sunk downward, so that I was obliged to hold 
her up in my arms. I had never seen a woman 
swoon. I thought she was dying, and shouted to 
them below to come and help me. 

The potter sat sprawling on the ground, and did 
not bestir himself to do anything. As soon as my 
hands and mind were free I took him by the scruff 
of the neck and kicked him behind with a good 
will. My rage at him for disregarding her state was 
the savage rage of an Iroquois. The other man 
laughed until the woods rang. Madame de Ferrier 
sat up in what seemed to me a miraculous manner. 
We bathed her temples with brandy, and put her on 
a cushion of leaves raked up and dried to make a 
seat by the fire. The other man, who helped me car- 
ry her into the ravine, stood with his hat off, as was 
her due. She thanked him and thanked me, half 
shrouding her face with her hood, abashed at finding 
herself lost among strangers in the night; which 
was my fault. I told him I had been a bad guide 
for a lady who had missed her way; and he said 
we were fortunate to reach a camp instead of stum- 
bling into some danger. 

He was much older than I, at least fourteen years, 
117 


ii8 


Iv A Z A R R H 


I learned afterwards, but it was like meeting Skene- 
donk again, or some friend from whom I had only 
been parted. 

The heartening warmth of the fire made steam 
go up from our clothes; and seeing Madame de 
Ferrier alive once more, and the potter the other 
side of his wheel taking stock of his hurt, I felt 
happy. 

We could hear in the cabin behind us a whining 
like that uttered by a fretful babe. 

My rage at the potter ending in good nature, I 
moved to make some amends for my haste ; but he 
backed off. 

'Wou startled us,” said the other man, ^^standing 
up in the clouds like ghosts. And your resemblance 
to one who has been dead many years is very strik- 
ing, monsieur.” 

I said I was sorry if I had kicked the potter with- 
out warrant, but it seemed to me a base act to hesi- 
tate when help was asked for a woman. 

^‘Yet I know little of what is right among men, 
monsieur,” I owned. ^T have been learning with a 
master in Count de Chaumont’s manor house less 
than a year. Before that my life was spent in the 
woods with the Indians, and they found me so dull 
that I was considered witless until my mind awoke.” 

“You are a fine fellow,” the man said, laying his 
hands on my shoulders. “My heart goes out to you. 
You may call me Louis Philippe. And what may I 
call you?” 

“Lazarre.” 


Iv AZ ARRH 


1 19 

He had a smiling good face, square, but well 
curved and firm. Now that I saw him fronting me I 
could trace his clear eyebrows, high forehead, and 
the laughter lines down his cheeks. He was long 
between the eyes and mouth, and he had a full and 
resolute chin. 

“You are not fat, Lazar re,’’ said Philippe, “your 
forehead is wide rather than receding, and you have 
not a double chin. Otherwise you are the image of 
one — Who are you?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Don’t know who you are ?” 

“No. We heard all that you and the potter were 
saying down here, and I wondered how many boys 
there are in America that are provided for through 
an agent in New York, without knowing their par- 
ents. Now that is my case.” 

“Do you say you have lived among the Indians ?” 

“Yes : among the Iroquois.” 

“Who placed you there ?” 

“No one could tell me except my Indian father; 
and he would not tell.” 

“Do you remember nothing of your childhood?” 

“Nothing.” 

“Did you ever see Bellenger before ?” 

“I never saw him before to-night.” 

“But I saw him,” said Madame de Ferrier, “in 
London, when I was about seven years old. It made 
a stronger impression on me than anything else that 
ever happened in my life, except” — she stopped. 


120 


Iv AZ ARRB 


‘‘Except the taking off of my mother and brothers 
to the guillotine.” 

The man who told me to call him Louis Philippe 
turned toward her, with attention as careful as his 
avoidance when she wished to be unobserved. She 
rose, and came around the fire, making a deep cour- 
tesy. 

“My family may not be unknown to his Royal 
highness the Duke of Orleans. We are De Ferriers 
of Mont-Louis ; emigres now, like many others.” 

“Madame, I knew your family well. They were 
loyal to their king.” 

“My father died here in America. Before we 
sailed we saw this man in London.” 

“And with him — ” 

“A boy.” 

“Do you remember the boy well ?” 

“I remember him perfectly.” 

The wailing in the cabin became louder and 
turned to insistent animal howls. Instead of a babe 
the imprisoned creature was evidently a dog. I 
wondered that the potter did not let him out to 
warm his hide at the fire. 

“Did you ever see the boy again ?” 

“I did not see him again until he was brought to 
Count de Chaumont’s house last summer.” 

“Why to De Chaumont? Le Ray de Chaumont 
is not one of us. He is of the new nobility. His 
chateau near Blois was bought by his grandfather, 
and he takes his name from the estate. I have heard 
he is in favor with Bonaparte.” 


L AZ ARRB 


I2I 


^^Even we of the old nobility, prince, may be re- 
duced to seek favor of Bonaparte.’^ 

'‘Heaven forbid, madame. I say nothing against 
him; though I could say much.” 

“Say nothing against Count de Chaumont. Count 
de Chaumont befriends all emigres.” 

“I have nothing to say against Count de Chau- 
mont. He is not of our party; he is of the new. 
Fools ! If we princes had stood by each other as the 
friends of the Empire stand by their emperor, we 
could have killed the Terror.” 

The animal in the cabin by this time was making 
such doleful cries I said to the potter, 

“Let him out. It is dreadful to be shut in by 
walls.” 

The potter, stooping half over and rolling stiffly 
from foot to foot in his walk, filled me with com- 
punction at having been brutal to so pitiful a crea- 
ture, and I hurried to open the door for him. The 
animal clawed vigorously inside, and the instant I 
pushed back the ill-fitted slabs, it strained through 
and rushed on all fours to the fire. Madame de Per- 
rier fled backward, for what I liberated could hardly 
be seen without dread. 

It was a human being. Its features were a boy^s, 
and the tousled hair had a natural wave. While it 
crouched for warmth I felt the shock of seeing a 
creature about my own age grinning back at me, 
fishy eyed and black mouthed. 

“There!’’ Bellenger said, straightening up in his 


122 


Iv ARRH 


place like a bear rising from all fours. “That is the 
boy your De Terriers saw in London.” 

I remembered the boy Madame Tank had told 
about. Whether myself or this less fortunate crea- 
ture was the boy, my heart went very pitiful toward 
him. Madame de Terrier stooped and examined 
him; he made a juicy noise of delight with his • 
mouth. 

“This is not the boy you had in London, mon- \ 
sieur,” she said to Bellenger. 

The potter waved his hands and shrugged. 

“You believe, madame, that Lazarre is the boy 
you saw in London?” said Louis Philippe. 

“I am certain of it.” 

“What proofs have you ?” 

“The evidence of my eyes.” 

“Tell that to Monsieur!” exclaimed the potter. 

“Who is Monsieur?” I asked. 

“The eldest brother of the king of Trance is called 
Monsieur. The Count de Provence will be called 
Monsieur until he succeeds Louis XVII and is 
crowned Louis XVIII — if that time ever comes. 
He cannot be called Louis XVII” — the man who 
told me to call him Louis Philippe took my arm, 
and I found myself walking back and forth with him 
as in a dream while he carefully formed sentence 
after sentence. “Because the dauphin who died in 
the Temple prison was Louis XVII. But there are 
a few who say he did not die : that a dying child was 
substituted for him : that he was smuggled out and 
carried to America. Bellenger was the agent em- 


Iv AZ ARRB 


123 


ployed. The dauphin^s sister is married to her 
cousin, the nephew of Monsieur. She herself be- 
lieves these things ; and it is certain a sum of money 
is sent out to America every year for his mainte- 
nance. He was reduced to imbecility when removed 
from the Temple. It is not known whether he will 
ever be fit to reign if the kingdom returns to him. 
No communication has been held with him. He was 
nine years old when removed from the Temple: he 
would now be in his nineteenth year. When I last 
saw him he was a smiling little prince with waving 
hair and hazel eyes, holding to his mother’s hand” — 

^^Stop!” 

The frenzy of half recollection came on me, and 
that which I had put away from my mind and sworn 
to let alone, seized and convulsed me. Dreams, and 
sensations, and instincts massed and fell upon me in 
an avalanche of conviction. 

I was that uncrowned outcast, the king of France ! 



BOOK 11. 


WANDERING 


I2S 



0 






I 


A PRIMROSE dawn of spring touched the 
mountains as Madame de Perrier and I 
stepped into the tunnel’s mouth. The wind that 
goes like a besom before sunrise, swept off the 
fog to corners of the sky, except a few spirals which 
still unwound from the lake. The underground 
path to De Chaumont’s manor descended by ter- 
races of steps and entered blackness. 

A rank odor of earth filled it ; and I never passed 
that way without hearkening for the insect-like song 
of the rattlesnake. The ground was slippery, and 
thick darkness seemed to press the soul out of the 
body. Yet I liked it; for when we reached the 
staircase of rock that entered the house, she would 
vanish. 

And so it was. 

She did say — ‘^Good-night — and good-morning.” 
And I answered, “Good-morning and good- 
night.” 

We were both physically exhausted. My head 
swarmed as with sparkles, and a thousand emotions 
tore me, for I was at the age when we risk all on 
chances. I sat alone on the steps, unmindful of that 
penetrating chill of stone which increases rather 
than decreases, the longer you sit upon it, and 
127 


128 


Iv A Z A R R K 


thought of all that had been said by my new friend 
at the camp-fire, while the moon went lower and 
lower, the potter turned his wheel, and the idiot 
slept. 

The mixed and oblique motives of human nature 
— the boy’s will — worked like gigantic passions. 

She had said very little to me in the boat, and I 
had said very little to her; not realizing that the 
camp talk, in which she took no part, separated us 
in a new way. 

Sitting alone on the steps I held this imaginary 
conversation with her. 

am going to France I” 

^‘You, monsieur?” 

‘‘Yes, I !” 

“How are you going ?” 

“I don’t know ; but I am going !” 

“The Duke of Orleans did not mention such a 
thing.” 

“Bother the Duke of Orleans !” 

“When are you going?” 

“Now!” 

“But it may not be best to go at this time.” 

“It is always best to go where you are !” 

“Monsieur, do not throw away your future on an 
unconsidered move.” 

“Madame, I will throw away my eternity !” 

Then I went back through the tunnel to the beach, 
stripped, and took a plunge to clear my head and 
warm my blood, rubbing off with my shirt. 

On reaching my room the first thing I did was to 


Iv A Z A R R e: 


129 


make a bundle of everything I considered necessary 
and desirable. There was no reason for doing this 
before lying down ; but with an easier mind I closed 
my eyes; and opened them to find sunset shining 
through the windows, and Doctor Chantry keeping 
guard in an arm-chair at my side. 

“Nature has taken her revenge on you, my lad,” 
said he. “And now I am going to take mine.” 

“I have slept all day!” 

“Renegades who roam the woods all night must 
expect to sleep all day.” 

“How do you know I have been in the woods all 
night ?” 

“I heard you slipping up the tunnel stairs without 
any shoes on at daylight. I have not been able to 
sleep two nights on account of you.” 

“Then why don’t you go to bed yourself, my dear 
master?” 

“Because I am not going to let you give me the 
slip another time. I am responsible for you: and 
you will have me on your back when you go prowl- 
ing abroad again.” 

“Again?” I questioned innocently. 

“Yes, again, young sir! I have been through 
your luggage, and find that you have packed 
changes of clothing and things necessary and unnec- 
essary to a journey, — even books.” 

“i hope you put them neatly together” — 

“Nothing of the kind. I scattered them.” 

“Do you want me to go bare into the world?” I 
laughed. 


130 


Iv AZ ARRB 


^Tazarre,” said my master, ‘^you were a good lad, 
studious and zealous beyond anything I ever saw/’ 

^‘And now I am bad and lazy.” 

**You have dropped your books and taken to wild 
ways.” 

“There is one thing, dear master, I haven’t done : 
I haven’t written poetry.” 

He blinked and smiled, and felt in his breast 
pocket, but thought better of it, and forebore to draw 
the paper out. There was no escaping his tenacious 
grip. He sat by and exercised me in Latin declen- 
sions while I dressed. We had our supper together. 
I saw no member of the household except the men, 
Pierre and Jean. Doctor Chantry ordered a mat- 
tress put in my room and returned there with me. 

We talked long on the approaching departure of 
the count and Madame de Perrier. He told me the 
latest details of preparation, and tremulously ex- 
plained how he must feel the loss of his sister. 

“I have nothing left but you, Lazarre.” 

“My dear master,” I said, patting one of his shriv- 
eled hands between mine, “I am going to be open 
with you.” 

I sat on the side of my bed facing his arm-chair, 
and the dressing-glass reflected his bald head and 
my young head drawn near together. 

“Did you ever feel as if you were a prince ?” 

Doctor Chantry wagged a pathetic negative. 

“Haven’t you ever been ready to dare anything 
and everything, because something in you said — I 
must I” 


Iv AZ ARRB 


131 

Again Doctor Chantry wagged a negative. 

*‘Now I have to break bounds — I have to leave 
the manor and try my fortune! I can’t wait for 
times and seasons — to be certain of this — to be cer- 
tain of that! — I am going to leave the house to- 
night — and I am going to France !” 

*‘My God !” cried Doctor Chantry, springing up. 
“He is going to France! — Rouse the servants! — 
Call De Chaumont!” He struck his gouty foot 
against the chair and sat down nursing it in both 
hands. I restrained him and added my sympathy 
to his groans. 

“Have you as much as a Spanish real of your 
own, my lad ?” he catechised me, when the foot was 
easy. 

I acknowledged that I had not. 

“It costs dear to travel about the world. It is not 
like coming down the trail from St. Regis to Lake 
George. How are you to travel without money ?” 

I laughed at the very uncertainty, and answered 
that money would be found. 

“Found ! It isn’t found, I tell you ! It is inher- 
ited by the idle, or gathered by the unscrupulous, 
or sweated and toiled for! It costs days and years, 
and comes in drops. You might as well expect to 
find a kingdom, lad !” 

“Maybe I shall find a kingdom, master !” 

“Oh, what a thing it is to be young!” sighed 
Doctor Chantry. 

I felt it myself, and hugged my youth. 


132 


Iv AZ AR RK 


‘‘Do you know how to reach the sea-port?” he 
continued. 

I said anybody could follow the Hudson to New 
York. 

“You’re bitten, my poor lad ! It’s plain what ails 
you. You might as well try to swim the Atlantic. 
De Chaumont intends her for himself. And in the 
unjust distribution of this world, your rival has the 
powder and you have the feelings. Stay where you 
are. You’ll never forget it, but it will hurt less as 
years go by.” 

“Master,” I said to him, “good sense is on your 
side. But if I knew I should perish, I would have 
to go !” 

And I added from fullness of conviction — 

“I would rather undertake to do something, and 
perish, than live a thousand years as I am.” 

Doctor Chantry struck the chair arm with his 
clenched fist. 

“My lad, so would I — so would I ! — I wish I had 
been dowered with your spirit! — I’m going with 
you!” 

As soon as he had made this embarrassing reso- 
lution my master blew his nose and set his British 
jaws firmly together. I felt my own jaw drop. 

“Have you as much as a Spanish real of your 
own?” I quoted. 

“That I have, young sir, and some American 
notes, such as they are, and good English pounds, 
beside.” 


Iv AZ ARRK 


133 

^'And do you know how to reach the sea- 
port?’’ 

“Since I came that way I can return that way. 
You have youth, my lad, but I have brains and expe- 
rience.” 

“It’s plain what ails you, Doctor Chantry. And 
you might as well try to swim the Atlantic.” 

My poor master dropped his head on his breast, 
and I was ashamed of baiting him and began to ar- 
gue tenderly. I told him he could not bear hard- 
ships ; he was used to the soft life in De Chaumont’s 
house; while my flesh had been made iron in the 
wilderness. I intended to take a boat from those 
hidden at our summer camp, to reach the head of 
Lake George. But from that point to the Hudson 
river — where the town of Luzerne now stands — it 
was necessary to follow a trail. I could carry the 
light canoe over the trail, but he could not even 
walk it. 

The more I reasoned with him the more obstinate 
he became. There was a wonderful spring called 
Saratoga, which he had visited with De Chaumont 
a few years before as they came into the wilder- 
ness; he was convinced that the water would set 
him on foot for the rest of the journey. 

“It is twenty-nine miles above Albany. We could 
soon reach it,” he urged. 

“I have heard of it,” I answered. “Skenedonk 
has been there. But he says you leave the river and 
go into the woods.” 

“I know the way,” he testily insisted. “And there 


134 


Iv AZ ARRB 


used to be near the river a man who kept horses and 
carried visitors to the spring/’ 

The spirit of reckless adventure, breaking through 
years of extreme prudence, outran youth. 

^‘What will you do in France?” I put to him. He 
knew no more than I what I should do. 

And there was Count de Chaumont to be consid- 
ered. How would he regard such a leave-tak- 
ing? 

Doctor Chantry was as insensible to De Chau- 
mont as I myself. Still he agreed to write a note 
to his protector while I prepared my quill to write 
one to Madame de Ferrier. With the spirit of the 
true parasite he laid all the blame on me, and said 
he was constrained by duty to follow and watch 
over me since it was impossible to curb a nature 
like mine. And he left a loop-hole open for a 
future return to De Chaumont’s easy service, when 
the hardships which he willingly faced brought him 
his reward. 

This paper he brazenly showed me while I was 
struggling to beg Madame de Terrier’s pardon, and 
to let her know that I aimed at something definite 
whether I ever reached port or not. 

I reflected with satisfaction that he would proba- 
bly turn back at Saratoga. We descended together 
to his room and brought away the things he needed. 
In bulk they were twice as large as the load I had 
made for myself. He also wrote out strict orders to 
Pierre to seal up his room until his return. The ina- 


L. A Z A R R B 135 

bility of an old man to tear himself from his accus- 
tomed environment cheered my heart. 

We then went back to bed, and like the two bad 
boys we were, slept prepared for flight. 


II 


U HIS is fine!” said Doctor Chantry, when 



we descended from the rough stage which 


had brought us across a corduroy trail, and 
found ourselves at the entrance of a spacious 
wooden tavern. “When I passed Saratoga before 
there were only three log houses, and the inn had 
two rooms below and one above. It was lighted by 
pine torches stuck in the chinks of the wall — and see 
how candles shine through these windows!” 

The tavern stood in a cleared place with miles of 
forest around it, and a marsh stretching near by. 
Dusk could not prevent our seeing a few log hab- 
itations, one of them decorated with a merchant’s 
sign. We entered among swarming crowds, a little 
world dropped into the backwoods. This was more 
surprising because we had just left behind us a sense 
of wild things gathering to their night haunts, and 
low savage cries, and visions of moose and deer 
through far-off arches. 

A man who appeared to be the host met us, his 
sprightly interest in our welfare being tempered by 
the consciousness of having many guests ; and told 
us the house was full, but he would do what he could 
for us. 

“Why is the house full?” fretted Doctor Chantry. 


136 


Iv AZ ARRB 


137 

‘‘What right have you, my dear sir, to crowd your 
house and so insure our discomfort ?” 

“None at all, sir,” answered the host good na- 
turedly. “If you think you can do better, try for 
lodgings at the store-keeper's.” 

“The store-keeper's!” Doctor Chantry's hys- 
terical cry turned some attention to us. “I shall do 
nothing of the kind. I demand the best you have, 
sir.” 

“The best I can give you,” amended our host. 
“You see we are very full of politicians from Wash- 
ington. They crowd to the spring.” 

My master turned his nose like the inflamed horn 
of a unicorn against the politicians from Washing- 
ton, and trotted to the fireplace where blazing knots 
cheered a great tap-room set with many tables and 
benches. 

And there rested Skenedonk in silent gravity, 
toasting his moccasins. The Iroquois had long made 
Saratoga a gathering place, but I thought of this 
Oneida as abiding in St. Regis village; for our 
people did not come to the summer hunting in 
May. 

Forgetting that I was a runaway I met him heart- 
ily, and the fawn eyes in his bald head beamed their 
accustomed luster upon me. I asked him where 
my father and mother and the rest of the tribe were, 
and he said they had not left St. Regis. 

“And why are you so early ?” I inquired. 

He had been at Montreal, and had undertaken to 
guide a Frenchman as far as Saratoga. It is not 


Iv AZ ARRB 


138 

easy to surprise an Indian. But I wondered that 
Skenedonk accepted my presence without a question, 
quite as if he had himself made the appointment. 

However, the sights to be seen put him out of my 
head. Besides the tap-room crowded with men there 
was a parlor in which women of fashion walked 
about, contrasting with the place. They had all been 
to a spring to drink water ; for only one spring was 
greatly used then ; and they talked about the medici- 
nal effects. Some men left the stronger waters, 
which could be had at a glittering portcullised bar 
opposite the fireplace in the tap-room, to chat with 
these short-waisted beauties. I saw one stately 
creature in a white silk ball costume, his stockings 
splashed to the knees with mud from the corduroy 
road. 

But the person who distinguished himself from 
everybody else by some nameless attraction, was a 
man perhaps forty years old, who sat in a high- 
backed settle at a table near the fire. He was erect 
and thin as a lath, long faced, square browed and 
pale. His sandy hair stood up like the bristles of a 
brush. Carefully dressed, with a sword at his side — 
as many of the other men had — he filled my idea of 
a soldier ; and I was not surprised to hear his friends 
sitting opposite call him General Jackson. 

An inkstand, a quill and some paper were placed 
before him, but he pushed them aside with his glass 
of toddy to lift one long fore-finger and emphasize 
his talk. He had a resonant, impressive voice, with 
a manner gentle and persuasive, like a woman’s : and 



He pushed them aside with his glass of toddy to lift one 
long fore-hnger and emphasize his talk 




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Iv A Z A R R E 139 

he was speaking of Aaron Burr, the man whose duel 
had made such a noise in the newspapers. 

disagree with you, Mr. Campbell. You are 
prejudiced against Mr. Burr on account of his late 
unfortunate affair. Even in that case I maintain 
every man has a right to honor and satisfaction. 
But he loves the Spanish on our southwestern bor- 
ders no better than I do, — and you know how I love 
the Spanish 

The other man laughed, lounging against the 
table. 

‘"You can’t believe anything ill of Aaron Burr, 
General.” 

I might have given attention to what they were 
saying, since here were men from Washington, the 
very fountain of government, if Doctor Chantry 
had not made me uneasy. He chose the table at 
which they were sitting and placed himself in the 
seat nearest the fire, with the utmost nicety about 
his own comfort. He wiped his horn spectacles, 
and produced his own ink and quill and memor- 
andum from a breast pocket. I had begged the 
doctor to keep strict account between us, that I 
might pay back from my pension whatever he spent 
on me, and with fine spider-like characters he was 
proceeding to debit me with the stage fare, when 
another quill barred his entrance to his ink-horn. 

He took off his spectacles and glared pink-eyed at 
the genial gentleman with sandy upright hair. 

“Sir !” he cried, “that is my ink !” 

General Jackson, absorbed in talk, did not notice 


140 


Iv A.Z ARRK 


Doctor Chantry, who half arose and shouted direct- 
ly at his ear, 

''Sir, that is my ink!” 

He knocked the interloping quill in the direction 
of its owner. 

The genial sandy gentleman changed countenance 
in a way to astonish beholders. 

"Have I disputed it, sir ?” 

"No, sir, but you have dipped into it without ask- 
ing leave.” 

"By God, sir, what is a fip’ny-bit’s worth of ink ?” 

"But it's mine, sir !” 

"I see, sir; you're a Yankee, sir !” 

"I'm not, sir; I'm English — the finest race in the 
world !” 

General Jackson looked him up and down as they 
rose fronting each other, and filled the air with daz- 
zling words. 

"I should judge so, sir, by the specimen I see 
before me !” 

Doctor Chantry was like a fighting-cock, and it 
was plainly his age which kept the other from 
striking him. He was beginning our journey well, 
but I felt bound to intercept whatever fell upon him, 
and stood between them. The other men at the 
table rose with General Jackson. 

"Gentlemen,” I pleaded with the best words I 
could command in the language, "do not forget your 
dignity, and disturb the peace of this house for a 
bottle of ink 1” 

The quarrel was ridiculous, and the Southerners 


Iv AZ ARRB 


141 

laughed. General Jackson himself again changed 
countenance, and gave me, I do not know why, a 
smile that must have been reflected from the face 
of a woman he adored. But my poor master showed 
the bull-dog; and taking him by the arm and the 
collar I toddled him away from that table to a dark 
entry, where I held him without any admonition 
save a sustained grip. He became like a child, weep- 
ing and trembling, and declaring that everybody was 
in league against him. Argument is wasted on peo- 
ple having such infirmity of temper. When he was 
well cooled I put him in an arm-chair by a fire in the 
ladies’ parlor, and he was soon very meek and tract- 
able, watching the creatures he so admired. 

‘‘You must go to bed as soon as you have your 
supper,” I said to him. “The journey to Saratoga 
has been a hard one for you. But Skenedonk is 
here fortunately, and he can take you home again.” 

My master looked at me with the shrewishness of 
an elephant. I had not at that time seen an ele- 
phant. When I did see one, however, the shifting 
of its eyes brought back the memory of Doctor 
Chantry when I had him at bay by the fire. 

“You are not going to get away from me,” he 
responded. “If you are tired of it, so am I. Other- 
wise, we proceed.” 

“If you pick quarrels with soldiers and duelists at 
every step, what are we to do?” 

“I picked no quarrel. It is my luck. Everyone 
is against me !” He hung his head in such a dejected 
manner that I felt ashamed of bringing his tempera- 


142 


Iv AZ ARRK 


ment to account : and told him I was certain no harm 
would come of it. 

“I am not genial,” Doctor Chantry owned; 
wish I were. Now you are genial, Lazar re. People 
take to you. You attract them. But whatever I 
am, you are obliged to have my company : you can- 
not get along without me. You have no experi- 
ence, and no money. I have experience, — and a 
few pounds: — not enough to retire into the coun- 
try upon, in England; but enough to buy a little 
food for the present.” 

I thought I could get along better without the 
experience and even the few pounds, than with him 
as an encumbrance ; though I could not bring myself 
to the cruelty of telling him so. For there is in me 
a fatal softness which no man can have and over- 
bear others’ in this world. It constrains me to make 
the other man’s cause my own, though he be at war 
with my own interests. 

Therefore I was at the mercy of Skenedonk, also. 
The Indian appeared in the doorway and watched 
me. I knew he thought there was to be trouble with 
the gentleman from Washington, and I went to him 
to ease his mind. 

Skenedonk had nothing to say, however, and 
made me a sign to follow him. As we passed 
through the tap-room. General Jackson gave me 
another pleasant look. He had resumed his con- 
versation and his own ink-bottle as if he had never 
been interrupted. 


Iv AZ ARRK 


143 


The Indian led me upstairs to one of the cham- 
bers, and opened the door. 

In the room was Louis Philippe, and when we 
were shut alone together, he embraced me and kissed 
me as I did not know men embraced and kissed. 

^^Do you know Skenedonk?’’ I exclaimed. 

‘Tf you mean the Indian who brought you at my 
order, he was my guide from Montreal.” 

*^But he was not with you at the potter’s camp.” 

‘‘Yes, he was in the hut, wrapped in his blanket, 
and after you drove the door in he heard all that 
was said. Lazarre” — Louis Philippe took my face 
in his hands — “make a clean breast of it.” 

We sat down, and I told him without being ques- 
tioned what I was going to do. He gravely con- 
sidered. 

“I saw you enter the house, and had a suspicion 
of your undertaking. It is the worst venture you 
could possibly make at this time. We will begin 
with my family. Any belief in you into which I may 
have been betrayed is no guaranty of Monsieur’s 
belief. You understand,” said Louis Philippe, “that 
Monsieur stands next to the throne if there is no 
dauphin, or an idiot dauphin ?” 

I said I understood. 

“Monsieur is not a bad man. But Bellenger, who 
took charge of the dauphin, has in some manner 
and for some reason, provided himself with a sub- 
stitute, and he utterly denies you. Further : suppos- 
ing that you are the heir of France, restored to your 
family and proclaimed — of what use is it to present 


144 


L. AZ AR RK 


yourself before the French people now? They are 
besotted with this Napoleon. The Empire seems to 
them a far greater thing than any legitimate mon- 
archy. Of what use, do I say ? It would be a posi- 
tive danger for you to appear in France at this time ! 
Napoleon has proscribed every Bourbon. Any 
prince caught alive in France will be put to death. 
Do you know what he did last year to the Duke 
d’Enghien? He sent into Germany for the duke, 
who had never harmed him, never conspired against 
him — had done nothing, in fact, except live an inno- 
cent life away from the seat of Napoleon's power. 
The duke was brought to Paris under guard and 
put in the dungeons of Vincennes. He demanded 
to see Bonaparte. Bonaparte would not see him. 
He was tried by night, his grave being already dug 
in the castle ditch. That lovely young fellow — he 
was scarcely above thirty — was taken out to the 
ditch and shot like a dog!” 

I stood up with my hands clenched. 

“Sit down,” said Louis Philippe. “There is no 
room in the world at this time for anybody but that 
jealous monster.” 

“He shall not tie me here,” I said. 

“You intend to go?” 

“I intend to go.” 

“This Bonaparte,” said Louis Philippe, “has his 
troubles. His brother Jerome has married an 
American in Baltimore. A fine explosion that will 
make when it reaches his ears. Where are you 
going to land, Lazarre?” 


A Z A R R H 


145 


I said that must depend on the ship I took. 

‘^And what are you going to do when you land?’^ 

I said I would think that out later. 

Then the spirit being upon me, I burst bounds 
and told him impetuously that I was going to learn 
what the world held for me. Without means, with- 
out friends, or power or prospects, or certainty of 
any good results — impudent — reckless — utterly 
rash — “I am going,’^ I cried, ^'because I must go!” 

“There is something about you which inspires 
love, my boy,” said Louis Philippe; and I heard 
him with astonishment. “Perhaps it comes from 
the mother; she was a witcher of all mankind.” 

“I cannot understand why any one should love so 
ignorant a creature, but God grant there be others 
that love me, too; for I have lived a life stinted of 
all affection. And, indeed, I did not know I wanted 
it until last year. When we talked late the other 
night, and you told me the history of all my family, 
the cruelest part of my lot seemed the separation 
from those that belonged to me. Separation from 
what is our own ought not to be imposed upon us 
even by God Himself!” 

“What!” said Louis Philippe, “is he following a 
woman!” 

My face burned, and probably went white, for I 
felt the blood go back on my heart. He took my 
hand and stroked it. 

“Don’t chain yourself behind that chariot. Wait 
a little while for your good star to rise. I wish I 
had money. I wish I could be of use to you in 


146 


Iv AZ AR RB 


France. I wish I stood nearer to Monsieur, for 
your safe Every one must love this bold pure face. 
It bears some resemblance to Madame Royal. 
The sister of the dauphin is a good girl, not many 
years your senior. Much dominated by her uncles, 
but a royal duchess. It is the fashion now to laugh 
at chivalry. You are the most foolish example of 
it I ever saw! It is like seeing a knight without 
horse, armor, or purse, set out to win an equipment 
before he pursues his quest! Yet I love you for 
it, my boy!” 

“It would be well for me if I had more friends 
like you.” 

“Why, I can be of no use! I cannot go back to 
France at this time, and if I could, what is my influ- 
ence there? I must wander around in foreign parts, 
a private gentleman eking out my living by some 
kind of industry. What are you going to do with 
the fretful old fellow you have with you?” 

I groaned and laughed. 

“Carry him on my back. There is no getting rid 
of him. He is following me to France. He is my 
lesson-master.” 

“How will you support him?” 

“He is supporting me at present. But I would 
rather take my chances alone.” 

“You have another follower,” said Louis Phi- 
lippe. “Your Indian has been in France, and after 
hearing our talk at the camp, he foresaw you might 
be moved to this folly, and told me he intended to 
guide you there, or wherever you go!” 

“And Skenedonk, too!” 


Iv A2: ARRK 


147 


I shook with laughter. It was so like Skenedonk 
to draw his conclusions and determine on the next 
step. 

“What will I do with them?” 

“The old master can be your secretary, and as 
for the Indian, you can take him for your ser- 
vant.” 

“A secretary and a servant, for an outcast with- 
out a penny to his pouch!” 

“You see the powers that order us are beginning 
well with you. Starting with a secretary and a 
servant, you may end with a full household and a 
court! I ought to add my poor item of tribute, 
and this I can do. There is a ship-master taking 
cargo this month in New York bay, who is a de- 
voted royalist; a Breton sailor. For a letter from 
me he will carry you and your suite to the other 
side of the world; but you will have to land in his 
port.” 

“And what will the charges be?” 

“Nothing, except gratitude, if I put the case as 
strongly to him as I intend to do. God knows I 
may be casting a foul lot for you. His ship is 
staunch, rigged like the Italian salt ships. But it is 
dirty work crossing the sea; and there is always 
danger of falling into the hands of pirates. Afe 
you determined?” 

I looked him in the eyes, and said I was; thank- 
ing him for all his goodness to one who had so little 
expectation of requiting him. The sweet heartiness 
of an older man so far beyond myself in princely 


148 


Iv AZ ARRK 


attainments and world knowledge, who could stoop 
to such a raw savage, took me by storm. 

I asked him if he had any idea who the idiot was 
that we had seen in Bellenger’s camp. He shook 
his head, replying that idiots were plentiful, and the 
people who had them were sometimes glad to get 
rid of them. 

'The dauphin clue has been very cleverly man- 
aged by — Bellenger, let us say,” Louis Philippe re- 
marked. "If you had not appeared, I should not 
now believe there is a dauphin.” 

I wanted to tell him all the thoughts tossing in 
my mind; but silence is sometimes better than open 
speech. Facing adventure, I remembered that I 
had never known the want Of food for any length 
of time during my conscious life. And I had a sus- 
picion the soft life at De Chaumont’s had unstrung 
me for what was before me. But it lasted scarce a 
year, and I was built for hardship. 

He turned to his table to write the ship-master’s 
letter. Behold, there lay a book I knew so well 
that I exclaimed — 

"Where did you get my missal?” 

"Your missal, Lazarre? This is mine.” 

I turned the leaves, and looked at the back. It 
was a continuation of the prayers of the church. 
There were blank leaves for the inscribing of pray- 
ers, and one was written out in a good bold 
hand. 

"His Majesty Louis XVI composed and wrote 
that prayer himself,” said Louis Philippe. "The 


Iv AZ ARRK 


149 


comfort-loving priests had a fashion of dividing 
the missal into three or four parts, that a volume 
might not be so heavy to carry about in their pock- 
ets. This is the second volume. It "was picked up 
in the Tuileries after that palace was sacked.’’ 

I told him mine must be the preceding volume, 
because I did not know there was any continuation. 
The prayers of the church had not been my 
study. 

'‘Where did you get yours, Lazarre?” 

“Madame de Ferrier gave it to me. When I saw 
it I remembered, as if my head were split open to 
show the picture, that my mother had read from 
that very book to me. I cannot explain it, but so 
it was.” 

“I am not surprised she believes, against Bellen- 
ger’s evidence, that you are Louis of France.” 

'T will bring my book and show it to you.” 

We compared the volumes after supper, and one 
was the mate of the other. 

The inn dining-room had one long table 
stretched down its entire length, heaped with wild 
meats and honey and pastries and fish in abun- 
dance. General Jackson sat at one end, and at the 
other sat the landlord, explaining to all his guests 
what each dish was, and urging good appetite. I 
sat by Louis Philippe, whose quality was known 
only to myself, with Doctor Chantry on the other 
side fretting for the attendance to which Jean had 
used him. 


Iv AZ ARRB 


150 

My master was so tired that I put him early to 
bed; and then sat talking nearly all night with the 
gracious gentleman to whom I felt bound by grati- 
tude and by blood. 


Ill 


D ieppe, high and glaring white above the 
water, will always symbolize to me the gate 
of France. The nobility of that view remained in 
my thoughts when half the distance to Paris was 
traversed. 

I could shut my eyes and see it as I lay on the 
straw in a post-house stable. A square hole in the 
front of the grenier gave upon the landscape. Even 
respectable houses in that part of the country were 
then built with few or no windows; but delicious 
masses of grayness they were, roofed with thick 
and overhanging thatch. 

“The stables of France are nothing but covered 
dunghills,^^ Doctor Chantry grumbled; so when I 
crept with the Indian to lodgings over the cattle, 
one of the beds in the house was hired for the 
gouty master. Even at inns there were two or 
three beds in a room where they set us to dine. 

“An English inn-keeper would throw their furni- 
ture into the fire!’’ he cried in a language fortu- 
nately not understood. 

“But we have two good rooms on the ground 
floor, and another for Skenedonk,” I sometimes 
remonstrated with him, “at three shillings and six- 
pence a day, in your money.” 

“You would not see any man, let his rank be 

151 


152 


Iv AZ ARRB 


what it may/’ Doctor Chantry retorted, “dining in 
his bedroom, in England. And look at these walls ! — 
papered with two or three kinds of paper, the bare 
spots hung with tapestry moth-eaten and filled 
with spiders! And what have we for table? — a 
board laid on cross-bars! And the oaken chairs 
are rush-bottomed, and so straight the backs are 
a persecution! The door hinges creak in these 
inns, the wind blows through — ” 

So his complaints went on, for there never was a 
man who got so much out of small miseries. Sken- 
edonk and I must have failed to see all in our trav- 
els that he put before us. For we were full of 
enjoyment and wonder: at the country people, 
wooden shod, the women’s caps and long cloaks; 
at the quiet fair roads which multiplied themselves 
until we often paused enchanted in a fairy world 
of sameness; at market-towns, where fountains in 
the squares were often older than America, the 
country out of which we arrived. 

Skenedonk heard without shifting a muscle all 
Doctor Chantry’s grievances; and I told him we 
ought to cherish them, for they were views of life 
we could not take ourselves. Few people are made 
so delicately that they lose color and rail at the 
sight of raw tripe brought in by a proud hostess 
to show her resources for dinner; or at a chicken 
coming upon the table with its head tucked beneath 
its wing. 

“We are fed with poulet, poulet, nothing but 


Iv AZ A RRE^ 


153 

poulet/’ said Doctor Chantry, '^until the poulets 
themselves are ashamed to look us in the face!’' 

We fared well, indeed, and the wine was good, 
and my master said he must sustain himself on it 
though it proved his death. He could not march 
as Skenedonk and I regularly marched. We hired 
a cart to lift him and our knapsacks from village to 
village, with a driver who knew the road to Paris. 
When the distances were long we sometimes 
mounted beside him. I noticed that the soil of this 
country had not the chalk look of other lands which 
I afterwards saw to the east and north; but Napo- 
leon was already making good the ancient thor- 
oughfares. 

When my master was on shipboard he enjoyed 
the sea even less than the free air of these broad 
stretches; for while he could cast an eye about 
and approve of something under the sky — perhaps 
a church steeple, or the color of a thatch which 
filled me with joy — he could not approve of any- 
thing aboard a ship. Indeed, it was pity to have no 
delight in cleaving the water, and in the far-off 
spouting of whales, to say nothing of a living world 
that rides in undulations. For my part, I loved 
even the creaking of a ship, and the uncertainty of 
ever coming to port, and the anxiety lest a black 
flag should show above every sail we passed. The 
slow progress of man from point to point in his 
experience, while it sometimes enrages, on the 
whole interests me ; and the monotony of a voyage 
has a sweetness like the monotony of daily bread. 


154 


Iv A Z A R R B 


I looked out of the grenier window upon the high 
road, and upon the June sun in the act of setting; 
for we had supped and gone early to rest after a 
hard day. Post horses were stamping underneath, 
all ready for some noble count who intended to 
make another stage of his journey before night- 
fall. 

Small obtrusive cares, such as the desire that 
my shoes should last well into Paris, mingled 
with joy in the smell of the earth at sunset, and the 
looking forward to seeing Madame de Ferrier 
again. I wrapped myself every night in the con- 
viction that I should see her, and more freely than 
I had ever seen her in America. 

There was a noise of horses galloping, and the 
expected noble count arrived; being no other than 
De Chaumont with his post coaches. He stepped 
out of the first, and Ernestine stepped out of the 
second, carrying Paul. She took him to his mother. 
The door flew open, and the woman I adored re- 
ceived her child and walked back and forth with 
him. Annabel leaned out while the horses were 
changed. I saw Miss Chantry, and my heart mis- 
gave me, remembering her brother’s prolonged 
lament at separation from her. 

He was, I trusted, already shut into one of those 
public beds which are like cupboards; for the day 
had begun for us at three of the morning. But if 
he chose to show himself, and fall upon De Chau- 
mont for luxurious conveyance to Paris, I was 
determined that Skenedonk and I should not ap- 


Iv AZ ARRE: 


155 


pear. I wronged my poor master, who told me 
afterwards he watched through a crack of the cup- 
board bed with his heart in his mouth. 

The pause was a very short one, for horses are 
soon changed. Madame de Ferrier threw a search- 
ing eye over the landscape. It was a mercy she 
did not see the hole in the grenier, through which 
I devoured her, daring for the first time to call her 
secretly — Eagle — the name that De Chaumont used 
with common freedom! Now how strange is this — 
that one woman should be to a man the sum of 
things! And what was her charm I could not tell, 
for I began to understand there were many beau- 
tiful women in the world, of all favors, and shapely 
perhaps as the one of my love. Only her I found 
drawing the soul out of my body; and none of the 
others did more than please the eye like pictures. 

The carriages were gone with the sun, and it was 
no wonder all fell gray over the world. 

De Chaumont had sailed behind us, and he would 
be in Paris long before us. 

I had first felt some uneasiness, and dread of 
being arrested on our journey; though our Breton 
captain — who was a man of gold that I would travel 
far to see this day, if I could, even beneath the At- 
lantic, where he and his ship now float — obtained 
for us at Dieppe, on his own pledge, a kind of sub- 
stitute for passports. We were a marked party, by 
reason of the doctor’s lameness and Skenedonk’s 
appearance. The Oneida, during his former so- 
journ in France, had been encouraged to preserve 


Iv AZ AR RK 


156 

the novelty of his Indian dress. As I had nothing 
to give him in its place it did not become me to find 
fault. And he would have been more conspicuous 
with a cocked hat on his bare red scalp, and knee 
breeches instead of buckskins. Peasants ran out 
to look at him, and in return we looked at them with 
a good will. 

We reached the very barriers of Paris, however, 
without falling into trouble. And in the streets 
were so many men of so many nations that Skene- 
donk’s attire seemed no more bizarre than the tur- 
bans of the east or the white burnous of the Arab. 

It was here that Skenedonk took his role as 
guide, and stalked through narrow crooked streets, 
which by comparison made New York, my first 
experience of a city, appear a plain and open vil- 
lage. 

I do not pretend to know anything about Paris. 
Some spots in the mystic labyrinth stand out to 
memory, such as that open space where the guillo^ 
tine had done its work, the site of the Bastille, and 
a long street leading from the place of the Bastille, 
parallel with the river; and this I have good reason 
to remember. It is called Rue St. Antoine. I 
learned well, also, a certain prison, and a part of the 
ancient city called Faubourg St. Germain. One 
who can strike obscure trails in the wilderness of 
nature, may blunt his fine instincts on the wilder- 
ness of man. 

This did not befall the Indian. He took a bee line 
upon his old tracks, and when the place was sighted 




157 


we threaded what seemed to be a rivulet between 
cliffs, for a moist depressed street-center kept us 
straddling something like a gutter, while with out- 
stretched hands we could brace the opposite walls. 

We entered a small court where a gruff man, 
called a concierge, having a dirty kerchief around 
his head, received us doubtfully. He was not the 
concierge of Skenedonk’s day. We showed him 
coin; and Doctor Chantry sat down in his chair and 
looked at him with such contempt that his respect 
increased. 

The house was clean, and all the stairs we 
climbed to the roof were well scoured. From the 
mansard there was a beautiful view of Paris, with 
forest growth drawing close to the heart of the 
city. For on that side of the world men dare not 
murder trees, but are obliged to respect and cherish 
them. 

My poor master stretched himself on a bed by the 
stooping wall, and in disgust of life and great pain 
of feet, begged us to order a pan of charcoal and 
let him die the true Parisian death when that is not 
met on the scaffold. Skenedonk said to me in Iro- 
quois that Doctor Chantry was a sick old woman 
who ought to be hidden some place to die, and it 
was his opinion that the blessing of the church 
would absolve us. We could then make use of the 
pouch of coin to carry on my plans. 

My plans were more ridiculous than Skenedonk’s. 
His at least took sober shape, while mine were still 
the wild emotions of a young man's mind. Many 


LAZAR RK 


158 

an hour I had spent on the ship, watching the foam 
speed past her side, trying to foresee my course 
like hers in a trackless world. But it seemed I 
must wait alertly for what destiny was making 
mine. 

We paid for our lodgings, three commodious 
rooms, though in the mansard; my secretary drag- 
ging himself to sit erect with groans and record the 
increasing debt of myself and my servant. 

^^Come, Skenedonk,” I then said. “Let us go 
down to the earth and buy something that Doctor 
Chantry can eat.” 

That benevolent Indian was quite as ready to 
go to market as to abate human nuisances. And 
Doctor Chantry said he could almost see English 
beef and ale across the channel; but translated into 
French they would, of course, be nothing but poulet 
and sour wine. I pillowed his feet with a bag of 
down which he had kicked off his bed, and Skene- 
donk and I lingered along the paving as we had 
many a time lingered through the woods. There 
were book stalls a few feet square where a man 
seemed smothered in his own volumes; and victual 
shops where you could almost feed yourself for 
two or three sous; and people sitting outdoors 
drinking wine, as if at a general festival. I thought 
Paris had comfort and prosperity — with hereditary 
kings overthrown and an upstart in their place. 
Yet the streets were dirty, with a smell of ancient- 
ness that sickened me. 

We got a loaf of bread as long as a staff, a pat 


Iv AZ ARRK 


159 


of butter in a leaf, and a bottle of wine. My ser- 
vant, though unused to squaw labor, took on him- 
self the porterage of our goods, and I pushed from 
street to street, keenly pleased with the novelty, 
which held somewhere in its volatile ether the per- 
son of Madame de Ferrier. 

Skenedonk blazed our track with his observant 
eye, and we told ourselves we were searching for 
Doctor Chantry’s beef. Being the unburdened 
hunter I undertook to scan cross places, and so 
came unexpectedly upon the Rue St. Antoine, as 
a man told me it was called, and a great hurrahing 
that filled the mouths of a crowd blocking the thor- 
oughfare. 

*‘Long live the emperor!” they shouted. 

The man who told me the name of the street, a 
baker all in white, with his tray upon his head, 
objected contemptuously. 

'The emperor is not in Paris: he is in Bou- 
logne.” 

"You never know where he is — he is here — 
there — everywhere!” declared another workman, 
in a long dark garment like a hunting-shirt on the 
outside of his small clothes. 

"Long live the emperor! — long live the em- 
peror!” 

I pushed forward as two or three heavy coaches 
checked their headlong speed, and officers parted 
the crowd. 

"There he is!” admitted the baker behind me. 
Something struck me in the side, and there was 


i6o 


Iv AZ ARRH 


Bellenger the potter, a man I thought beyond the 
seas in America. His head as I saw it that moment 
put the emperor’s head out of my mind. He had 
a knife, and though he had used the handle, I fool- 
ishly caught it and took it from him. With all his 
strength he then pushed me so that I staggered 
against the wheel of a coach. 

“Assassin!” he screamed; and then Paris fell 
around my ears. 

If anybody had seen his act nobody refrained 
from joining in the cry. 

“Assassin! Assassin! To the lamp post with 
him!” 

I stood stupefied and astonished as an owl blink- 
ing in the sunshine, and two guards held my collar. 
The coaches lashed away, carrying the man of des- 
tiny — as I have since been told he called himself — 
as rapidly as possible, leaving the victim of destiny 
to be bayed at by that many-headed dog, the mon- 
grel populace of Paris. 


m 


T he idiot boy somewhere upon the hills of 
Lake George, always in a world of fog which 
could not be discovered again, had often come 
to my mind during my journeys, like a self 
that I had shed and left behind. But Bellenger 
was a cipher. I forgot him even at the campfire. 
Now here was this poor crazy potter on my track 
with vindictive intelligence, the day I set foot in 
Paris. Time was not granted even to set the lodg- 
ing in order. He must have crossed the ocean with 
as good speed as Doctor Chantry and Skenedonk and 
I. He may have spied upon us from the port, 
through the barriers, and even to our mansard. At 
any rate he had found me in a crowd, and made use 
of me to my downfall: and I could have knocked 
my stupid head on J:he curb as I was haled away. 

One glimpse of Skenedonk I caught while we 
marched along Rue St. Antoine, the gendarmes 
protecting me from the crowd. He thought I was 
going to the scaffold, where many a strapping fel- 
low had gone in the Paris of his youth, and fought 
to reach me, laying about him with his loaf of bread. 
Skenedonk would certainly trail me, and find a way 
to be of use, unless he broke into trouble as readily 
as I had done. 

My guards crossed the river in the neighborhood 

i6i 


I. AZ ARRB 


162 

of palaces, and came by many windings to a huge 
pile rearing its back near a garden place, and there 
I was turned over to jailers and darkness. The 
entrance was unwholesome. A man at a table 
opened a tome which might have contained all the 
names in Paris. He dipped his quill and wrote by 
candlelight. 

“Political offender or common criminal?” he 
inquired. 

“Political offender,” the officer answered. 

“What is he charged with?” 

“Trying to assassinate the emperor in his post- 
chaise.” 

“La, la, la!” the recorder grunted. “Another 
attempt ! And gunpowder put in the street to blow 
the emperor up only last week. Good luck attends 
him: — only a few windows broken and some com- 
mon people killed. Taken in the act, was this fel- 
low?” 

“With the knife in his hand.” 

“What name?” the recorder inquired. 

I had thought on the answer, and told him merely 
that my name was Williams. 

“Eh, bien, Monsieur Veeleeum. Take him to the 
east side among the political offenders,” said the 
master-jailer to an assistant or turnkey. 

“But it’s full,” responded the turnkey. 

“Shove him in some place.” 

They searched me, and the turnkey lighted an- 
other candle. The meagerness of my output was 


A 2: A R R K 163 

beneath remark. When he had led me up a flight of 
stone steps he paused and inquired, 

'‘Have you any money?’’ 

"No.” 

"So much the worse for you.” 

"What is the name of this prison?” I asked. 

"Ste. Pelagie,” he answered. "If you have no 
money, and expect to eat here, you better give me 
some trinket to sell for you.” 

"I have no trinkets to give you.” 

He laughed. 

"Your shirt or breeches will do.” 

"Are men shut up here to starve?’' 

The jailer shrugged. 

"The bread is very bad, and the beans too hard 
to eat. We do not furnish the rations; it is not 
our fault. The rule here is nothing buys nothing. 
But sleep in your breeches while you can. You will 
soon be ready enough to eat them.” 

I was ready enough to eat them then, but for- 
bore to let him know it. The whole place was damp 
and foul. We passed along a corridor less than 
four feet wide, and he unlocked a cell from which 
a revolting odor came. There was no light except 
what strained through a loophole under the ceiling. 
He turned the key upon me, and I held my nose. 
Oh, for a deep draught of the wilderness! 

There seemed to be an iron bed at one side, with 
a heap of rags on top. I resolved to stand up all 
night before trusting myself to that couch. The 
cell was soon explored. Two strides in each direc- 


164 


Iv AZ ARRK 


tion measured it. The stone walls were marked or 
cut with names I could dimly see. 

I braced my back against the door and watched 
the loophole where a gray hint of daylight told that 
the sun must be still shining. This faded to a blotch 
in the thick stone, and became obliterated. 

Tired by the day’s march, and with a taste of 
clean outdoor air still in my lungs, I chose one of 
the two corners not occupied by the ill odored bed, 
sat down, and fell asleep, dropping my cares. A 
grating of the lock disturbed me. The jailer pushed 
a jug of water into the room, and replaced his bolts. 

Afterwards I do not remember anything except 
that the stone was not warm, and my stomach 
craved, until a groan in my ear stabbed sleep. I 
sat up awake in every nerve. There was nobody in 
the cell with me. Perhaps the groan had come 
from a neighboring prisoner. 

Then a faint stir of covering could be heard upon 
the bed. 

I rose and pressed as far as I could into my cor- 
ner. No beast of the wilderness ever had such ter- 
ror for me as the unknown thing that had been my 
cell-mate half a night without my knowledge. 

Was a vampire — a demon — a witch — a ghost 
locked in there with me? 

It moaned again, so faintly, that compassion 
instantly got the better of superstition. 

“Who is there?” I demanded; as if the knowl- 
edge of a name would cure terror of the suffering 
thing naming itself. 


Iv AZ ARRH 


165 

I got no answer, and taking my resolution in 
hand, moved toward the bed, determined to know 
what housed with me. The jug of water stood in 
the way, and I lifted it with instinctive answer to 
the groan. 

The creature heard the splash, and I knew by 
its mutter what it wanted. Groping darkly, to poise 
the jug for an unseen mouth, I realized that some- 
thing helpless to the verge of extinction lay on the 
bed, and I would have to find the mouth myself or 
risk drowning it. I held the water on the bed-rail 
with my right hand, groped with the other, and 
found a clammy, death-cold forehead, a nose and 
cavernous cheeks, an open and fever roughened 
mouth. I poured water on my handkerchief and 
bathed the face. That would have been my first 
desire in extreme moments. The poor wretch gave 
a reviving moan, so I felt emboldened to steady the 
jug and let drop by drop gurgle down its throat. 

Forgetting the horror of the bed I sat there, re- 
peating at intervals this poor ministration until the 
porthole again dawned, and blackness became the 
twilight of day. 

My cell-mate could not see me. I doubt if he 
ever knew that a hand gave him water. His eyes 
were meaningless, and he was so gaunt that his 
body scarcely made a ridge on the bed. 

Some beans and mouldy bread were put in for 
my rations. The turnkey asked me how I intended 
to wash myself without basin or ewer or towels. 


i66 


Iv A. Z A R R K 


and inquired further if he could be of service in 
disposing of my shirt or breeches. 

'‘What ails this man?” 

He shrugged, and said the prisoner had been 
wasting with fever. 

"You get fever in Ste. Pelagie,” he added, "espe- 
cially when you eat the prison food. This man 
ought to be sent to the infirmary, but the infirmary 
is overflowing now.” 

"Who is he?” 

"A journalist, or poet, or some miserable canaille 
of that sort. He will soon be out of your way.” 
Our guard craned over to look at him. "Owf — da ! 
He is a dying man! A priest must be sent to him 
soon, I remember he demanded one several days 

But that day and another dragged through be- 
fore the priest appeared. I sent out my waistcoat, 
and got a wretched meal, and a few spoonfuls of 
wine that I used to moisten the dying man’s lips. 
His life may or may not have been prolonged; but 
out of collapse he opened his mouth repeatedly and 
took the drops. He was more my blessing than I 
was his. 

For I had an experience which has ever since 
given me to know the souls of prisoners. 

The first day, in spite of the cell’s foulness, I 
laughed secretly at jailers and felt at peace, holding 
the world at bay. I did not then know that Ste. 
Pelagie was the tomb of the accused, where more 
than one prisoner dragged out years without learn- 


Iv A Z A R R B 167 

ing why he was put there. I was not brought to 
any trial or examination. 

But gradually an uneasiness which cannot be 
imagined by one who has not felt it, grew upon me. 
I wanted light. The absence of it was torture! 
Light — to vivify the stifling air, which died as this 
man was dying — as I should die — in blinding 
mirk! 

Moisture broke out all over my body, and cold 
dew stood on my forehead. How could human 
lungs breathe the midnight of blackening walls? 
The place was hot with the hell of confinement. I 
said over and over — ‘‘O God, Thou art Light! — in 
Thee is no darkness at all!” 

This anguish seemed a repetition of something 
I had endured once before. The body and spirit 
remembered, though the mind had no register. I 
clawed at the walls. If I slept, it was to wake gasp- 
ing, fighting upward with both hands. 

The most singular phase was that I reproached 
myself for not soaking up more sun in the past. 
Oh, how much light was going to waste over wide 
fields and sparkling seas! The green woods, the 
green grass — they had their fill of sun, while we 
two perished! 

I remembered creeping out of glare under the 
shadow of rocks, and wondered how I could have 
done it ! If I ever came to the sun again I would 
stretch myself and roll from side to side, to let it 
burn me well! How blessed was the tan we get in 
summer from steeping in light! 


i68 


Iv AZ ARRH 


Looking at my cell-mate I could have rent the 
walls. 

“We are robbed/’ I told his deaf ears. “The light, 
poured freely all over the city, the light that be- 
longs to you and me as much as to anybody, would 
save you ! I wish I could pick you up and carry you 
out where the sun would shine through your bones! 
But let us be glad, you and I, that there is a woman 
who is not buried like a whitening sprout under 
this weight of stone! She is free, to walk around 
and take the light in her gray eyes and the wind 
in her brown hair. I swear to God if I ever come 
out of this I will never pass so much as a little plant 
prostrate in darkness, without helping it to the 
light.” 

It was night by the loophole when our turnkey 
threw the door open. I heard the priest and his 
sacristan joking in the corridor before they entered 
carrying their sacred parcels. The priest was a dod- 
dering old fellow, almost deaf, for the turnkey 
shouted at his ear, and dim of sight, for he stooped 
close to look at the dying man, who was beyond 
confession. 

“Bring us something for a temporary altar/’ he 
commanded the turnkey, who stood candle in 
hand. 

The turnkey gave his light to the sacristan, and 
taking care to lock us in, hurried to obey. 

I measured the lank, ill-strung assistant, more 
an overgrown boy than a man of brawn, but ex- 
panded around his upper part by the fullness of a 


LAZARRB 169 

short white surplice. He had a face cheerful to 
silliness. 

The turnkey brought a board supported by cross- 
pieces; and withdrew, taking his own candle, as 
soon as the church’s tapers were lighted. 

The sacristan placed the temporary altar beside 
the foot of the bed, arrayed it, and recited the Con- 
fiteor. 

Then the priest mumbled the Misereatur and In- 
dulgentiam. 

I had seen extreme unction administered as I had 
seen many another office of the church in my dim 
days, with scarcely any attention. Now the words 
were terribly living. I knew every one before it 
rolled off the celebrant’s lips. Yet under that vivid 
surface knowledge I carried on as vivid a sequence 
of thought. 

The priest elevated the ciborium, repeating, 
“Ecce Agnus Dei.” 

Then three times — ^‘Domine non sum Dignus.” 

I heard and saw with exquisite keenness, yet I 
was thinking, 

'Tf I do not get out of here he will have to say 
those words over me.” 

He put the host in the parted mouth of the dying, 
and spoke — 

‘‘Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat 
animam tuam in vetam aeternam,” 

I thought how easy it would be to strip the loose 
surplice over the sacristan’s head. There was a 
swift clip of the arm around your opponent's neck 


170 


Iv AZ ARRB 


which I had learned in wrestling, that cut the breath 
off and dropped him as limp as a cloth. It was an 
Indian trick. I said to myself it would be impossi- 
ble to use that trick on the sacristan if he left the 
cell behind the deaf old priest. I did not want to 
hurt him. Still, he would have a better chance to 
live after I had squeezed his neck, than I should 
have if I did not squeeze it. 

The priest took out of a silver case a vessel of 
oib and a branch. He sprinkled holy water with 
the branch, upon the bed, the walls, the sacristan 
and me, repeating, 

‘^Asperges me Domine hyssopo et mundabor lav- 
abis me et super nivem dealbabor.’’ 

While I bent my head to the drops, I knew it was 
impossible to choke down the sacristan, strip off 
his surplice, invest myself with it and get out of the 
cell before priest or turnkey looked back. The sac- 
rilege of such an attack would take all the strength 
out of me. 

The priest said the Exaudi nos, exhorted the in- 
sensible figure, then recited the Credo and the Lit- 
any, the sacristan responding. 

Silence followed. 

I knew the end was approaching. My hands were 
as cold as the nerveless one which would soon re- 
ceive the candle. I told myself I should be a fool 
to attempt it. There was not one chance in a hun-. 
dred. I should not squeeze hard enough. The 
man would yell. If I were swift as lightning and 
silent as force, they would take me in the act. It 


Iv A z A R R K 


171 

was impossible. But people who cannot do impos- 
sible things have to perish. 

The priest dipped his thumb in oil, and with it 
crossed the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hands of 
him who was leaving the use of these five senses 
and instruments of evil. 

Then he placed a lighted candle in the stiffened 
fingers, and ended with — 

‘'Accipe lampadem ardentem custodi unctionem 
tuam.” 

I said to myself — ‘T cannot do it! Nobody could! 
It is impossible!” 

The sacristan now began to strip the altar and 
pack all the sacred implements into their cases : pre- 
paring his load in the center of the room. 

The man was dead. 

The sacristan’s last office was to fix the two 
lighted altar candles on the head and foot railing of 
the bed. They showed the corpse in its appalling 
stillness, and stood like two angels, with the pit 
between them. 

The sacristan rapped upon the door to let the 
turnkey know it was time to unlock. 

I drew the thick air to my lung depths. The man 
who would breathe no more was not as rigid as I 
stood. But there was no use in attempting such a 
thing! 

The turnkey opened a gap of doorway through 
which he could see the candles and the bed. He 
opened no wider than the breadth of the priest, who 


iy2 


Iv AZ ARRB 


stepped out as the sacristan bent for the porta- 
bles. 

There was lightning in my arm as it took the 
sacristan around the neck and let him limp upon 
the stones. The tail of the priest’s cassock was 
scarcely through the door. 

‘'Eh bien ! sacristan,” called the turnkey. “Make 
haste with your load. I have this death to report. 
He is not so pretty that you must stand gazing at 
him all night!” 

I had the surplice over the sacristan’s head and 
over mine, and backed out with my load, facing the 
room. 

If my jailer had thrust his candle at me, if the 
priest had turned to speak, if the man in the cell 
had got his breath before the bolt was turned, if 
my white surplice had not appeared the principal 
part of me in that black place — . 

It was impossible! — but I had done it. 


V 


T he turnkey’s candle made a star-point in 
the corridor. He walked ahead of the priest 
and I walked behind. We descended to the 
entrance where the man with the big book sat tak- 
ing stock of another wretch between officers. I 
saw as I shaded my face with the load, that his 
inattentive eye dwelt on my surplice, which would 
have passed me anywhere in France. 

'‘Good-night, monsieur the cure,” said the turn- 
key, letting us through the outer door. 

“Good-night, good-night,” the priest responded. 
“And to you, sacristan.” 

“Good-night,” I muttered, and he came a step 
after me. The candle was yet in his hand, showing 
him my bulk, and perhaps the small clothes he had 
longed to vend. I expected hue and cry, but walked 
on after the priest, and heard the heavy doors jar, 
and breathed again. 

Hearkening behind and in front, on the right and 
the left, I followed him in the direction of what I 
have since learned to call the Jardin des Plantes. 
It is near Ste. Pelagie. 

The priest, wearied by his long office, spoke only 
once about the darkness; for it was a cloudy night; 
and did not attend to my muttered response. I do 
not know what sympathy the excellent old man 

173 


174 


Iv AZ ARRK 


might have shown to an escaped prisoner who had 
choked his sacristan, and I had no mind to test it. 
He turned a corner, and with the wall angle be- 
tween us, I eased down the sacred furniture, drew 
off the surplice and laid that upon it, and took to 
my heels up the left hand street; for the guard had 
brought me across the river to Ste. Pelagie. 

I had no hat, and the cut of my coat showed that 
I had lost a waistcoat. Avoiding the little circles of 
yellowness made by lamp posts, I reached without 
mishap of falling into the hands of any patrol, a 
bridge crossing to an island point, and from the 
other side of the point to the opposite shore. At 
intervals along the parapet dim lights were placed. 

Compared to Lake George, which wound like a 
river, and the mighty St. Lawrence as I remem- 
bered it, the Seine was a narrow stream. Some 
boats made constellations on the surface. The mass 
of island splitting it into two branches was almost 
the heart of Paris. There were other foot passen- 
gers on the bridge, and a gay carriage rolled by. 
I did not see any gendarmes, and only one foot 
passenger troubled me. 

I was on the bridge above the left arm of the 
river when an ear trained in the woods caught his 
footstep, pausing as mine paused, and hurrying as 
mine hurried. If the sacristan had been found in 
Ste. Pelagie a pursuer would not track me so deli- 
cately, and neither would Skenedonk hold back on 
the trail. I stopped in the shade when we two 
were alone on the second span, and wheeled, cer- 


Iv A.Z ARRK 


175 


tain of catching my man under the flare of a cres- 
set. I caught him, and knew that it was Bellenger 
following me. 

My mind was made up in an instant. I walked 
back to settle matters with him, though slaughter 
was far from my thoughts. I had done him no 
harm ; but he was my enemy, and should be forced 
to let me alone. 

The fellow who had appeared so feeble at his 
cabin that I opened the door for him, and so poor- 
spirited that his intellect claimed pity, stood up as 
firm as a bear at my approach, and met my eyes 
with perfect understanding. 

Not another thing do I remember. The facts are 
simply these: I faced Bellenger; no blows passed; 
my mind flashed blank with the partial return of 
that old eclipse which has fallen upon me after 
strong excitement, in more than one critical mo- 
ment. The hiatus seems brief when I awake 
though it may have lasted hours. I know the 
eclipse has been upon me, like the wing-shadow of 
eternity ; but I have scarcely let go of time. 

I could not prove that Bellenger dragged me 
to the parapet and threw me into the river. If I 
had known it I should have laughed at his doing so, 
for I could swim like a fish, through or under water, 
and sit on the lake bottom holding my breath until 
Skenedonk had been known to dive for me. 

When next I sensed anything at all it was a feel- 
ing of cold. 

I thought I was lying in one of the shallow run- 


176 


Iv AZ ARRK 


lets that come into Lake George, and the pebbles 
were an uneasy bed, chilling my shoulders. I was 
too stiff to move, or even turn my head to lift out 
of water the ear on which it rested. But I could 
unclose my eyelids, and this is what I saw: — a man 
naked to his waist, half reclining against a leaning 
slab of marble, down which a layer of water con- 
stantly moved. His legs were clothed, and his 
other garments lay across them. His face had 
sagged in my direction. There was a deep slash 
across his forehead, and he showed his teeth and 
his glassy eyes at the joke. 

Beyond this silent figure was a woman as silent. 
The ridge of his body could not hide the long hair 
spread upon her breast. I considered the company 
and the moisture into which I had fallen with un- 
speakable amazement. We were in a low and wide 
stone chamber with a groined ceiling, supported by 
stone pillars. A row of lamps was arranged above 
us, so that no trait or feature might escape a be- 
holder. 

That we were put there for show entered my 
mind slowly and brought indignation. To be so 
helpless and so exposed was an outrage against 
which I struggled in nightmare impotence; for I 
was bare to my hips also, and I knew not what 
other marks I carried beside those which had 
scarred me all my conscious life. 

Now in the distance, and echoing, feet descended 
stairs. 


Iv AZ A RRK 


177 

I knew that people were coming to look at us, 
and I could not move a muscle in resentment. 

I heard their voices, fringed with echoes, before 
either speaker came within my vision. 

“This is the mortuary chapel of the Hotel Dieu?” 

“Yes, monsieur the marquis, this is the mortuary 
chapel.” 

“Um! Cheerful place!” 

“Much more cheerful than the bottom of the 
river, monsieur the marquis.” 

“No doubt. Never empty, eh?” 

“I have been a servant of the Hotel Dieu four- 
teen years, monsieur the marquis, and have not 
yet seen all the marble slabs vacant.” 

“You receive the bodies of the drowned?” 

“And place them where they may be seen and 
claimed.” 

“How long do you keep them?” 

“That depends. Sometimes their friends seek 
them at once. We have kept a body three months 
in the winter season, though he turned very 
green.” 

“Are all in your present collection gathering 
verdure?” 

“No, monsieur. We have a very fresh one, just 
brought in; a big stalwart fellow, with the look of 
the country about him.” 

“Small clothes?” 

“Yes, monsieur.” 

“Buckle shoes?” 

“Yes, monsieur.” 


178 


AZ ARRK 


‘‘Hair light and long?” 

“The very man, monsieur the marquis.” 

“I suppose I shall have to look at him. If he 
had to make himself unpleasant he should have 
stayed at the chateau where his mother could iden- 
tify him. He is one of my peasants, come to Paris 
to see life! I must hold my nose and do it.” 

“It is not necessary to hold the nose, monsieur.” 

“After fourteen years, perhaps not.” 

I heard the snap of a snuff-box lid as the marquis 
fortified himself. 

My agony for the woman who was to be looked 
at turned so sharp that I uttered a click in my 
throat. But they passed her, and merely glanced 
at my next neighbor. 

The old marquis encountered my fixed stare. 
Visibly it shocked through him. He was all gray, 
and curled and powdered, instead of being clipped 
close and smooth in the style of the Empire; 
an exquisite, thin-featured man, high of nose and 
eyebrows, not large, but completely turned out as 
ample man and bright spirit. The slightest fra- 
grance of scent was in his presence, and a shade 
of snuff on his upper lip appeared fine supercilious 
hairs. 

I did not look at the servant of the Hotel Dieu. 
The old noble and I held each other with unflinch- 
ing gaze. 

“Do you recognize him, monsieur?” 

“I do/’ the old noble deliberately answered. “I 


Iv AZ ARRH 


179 


should know this face anywhere. Have him taken 
to my carriage directly.” 

^'Your carriage, monsieur! He can be sent ” 

“I said take him to my carriage.” 

^‘It shall be done. His eyes have opened since 
he came in. But they sometimes look as if they 
would speak! Their faces change constantly. This 
other man who is grinning to-night may be quite 
serious to-morrow.” 

“And by the end of the month sorry enough, 
eh?” 

The servant of the Hotel Dieu tittered amiably, 
and I knew he was going for help to lift me off the 
slab, when he uttered a cry of surprise. The old 
marquis wheeled sharply, and said: 

“Eh, bien ! Is this another of them, promenading 
himself?” 

I felt the Oneida coming before his silent mocca- 
sins strode near me. He did not wait an instant, 
but dragged me from the wet and death cold marble 
to the stone floor, where he knelt upon one knee 
and supported me. O Skenedonk! how delicious 
was the warmth of your healthy body — how com- 
forting the grip of your hunter arms! Yet there 
are people who say an Indian is like a snake! I 
could have given thanks before the altar at the side 
of the crypt, which my fixed eyes encountered as 
he held me. The marble dripped into its gutter as 
if complaining of my escape. 

“Oh, my dear friend!” cried the servant. 

Skenedonk answered nothing at all. 


i8o 




“Who is this gentleman,’^ the marquis inquired, 
“that seems to have the skin of a red German sau- 
sage drawn tight over his head?’’ 

“This is an American Indian, monsieur the mar- 
quis.” 

“An Indian?” 

“Yes, monsieur; but he understands French.” 

“Thank you for the hint. It may save me from 
having a German sausage drawn tight over my 
head. I have heard that American Indians practice 
giving their friends that appearance. How do you 
know he understands French?” 

“I think it is the man who used to come to the 
Hotel Dieu years ago, when I was new in its serv- 
ice. He was instructed in religion by churchmen 
in Paris, and learned the language. Oh, my dear 
monsieur — I think it is Iroquois that he is called — 
I am aware the Americans have different manners, 
but here we do not go into the mortuary chapel 
of the Hotel Dieu and disarrange the bodies with- 
out permission!” 

Skenedonk’s eyes probably had less of the fawn 
in them than usual. I felt the guttural sound under 
his breast. 

“I have found him, and now I will take him.” 

“But that is the marquis’ servant!” 

“The marquis is his servant!” 

“Oh, my dear monsieur the Indian! You speak 
of a noble of France, the Marquis du Plessy! Be 
satisfied,” pleaded the servitor of the Hotel Dieu, 
“with this other body, whom no one is likely to 


A Z A R R K 


i8i 


claim! I may be permitted to offer you that, if 
you are determined — though it may cost me my 
place! — and after fourteen years’ service! If you 
would appease him, monsieur the marquis — though 
I do not know whether they ever take money.” 

will appease him,” said the old noble. ‘‘Go 
about your errand and be quick.” 

The servant fled up the stairs. 

“This man is not dead, my friend,” said the Mar- 
quis du Plessy. 

Skenedonk knew it. 

“But he will not live long in this cursed crypt,” 
the noble added. “You will get into my carriage 
with him, we will take him and put him in hot 
sheets, and see what we can do for him.” 

I could feel Skenedonk’s antagonism giving way 
in the relaxing of his muscles. 

But maintaining his position the Oneida asserted. 

“He is not yours!” 

“He belongs to France.” 

“France belongs to him!” the Indian reversed. 

“Eh, eh! Who is this young man?” 

“The king.” 

“We have no king now, my friend. But assum- 
ing there is a man who should be king, how do you 
know this is the one?” 

If Skenedonk made answer in words it was lost 
to me. The spirit sunk to submergence in the body. 
I remember combating motion like a drugged per- 
son. 

Torpor and prostration followed the recurring 


AZ ARRK 


182 

eclipse as that followed excitement and shock. I 
was not ill; and gathered knowledge of the envi- 
ronment, which was different from anything I had 
before experienced. De Chaumont’s manor was 
a wilderness fortress compared to this private hotel 
of an ancient family in the heart of Paris. 

I lay in a bed curtained with damask, and looked 
through open glass doors at a garden. Graveled 
walks, bosky trees and masses of flowers, plats of 
grass where arbored seats were placed, stretched 
their vista to a wall clothed in ivy, which proved 
to be the end of a chapel. For high over the cur- 
tain of thick green shone a rose window. The 
afternoon sun laid bare its fine staining, but only 
in the darkness when the church was illuminated 
and organ music rolled from it, did the soul of that 
window appear struck through with light. 

Strange servants and Doctor Chantry by 
glimpses, and the old noble and the Oneida almost 
constantly, were about me. Doctor Chantry 
looked complacently through the curtains and 
wished me good-morning. I smiled to see that he 
was lodged as he desired, and that his clothes had 
been renewed in fine cloth, with lawn to his neck 
and silk stockings for his shrunk calves. My master 
was an elderly beau ; and I gave myself no care that 
he had spent his money — the money of the ex- 
pedition — on foppery. 

Skenedonk also had new toggery in scarfs and 
trinkets which I did not recognize, and his fine 
buckskins were cleaned. The lackeys appeared 


Iv AZ ARRK 


183 


subservient to him, and his native dignity was never 
more impressive than in that great house. I watched 
my host and my servant holding interviews, which 
Skenedonk may have considered councils, on the 
benches in the garden, and from which my secre- 
tary, the sick old woman, seemed excluded. But 
the small interest of seeing birds arrive on branches, 
and depart again, sufficed me; until an hour when 
life rose strongly. 

I sat up in bed, anr? finding myself alone, took 
advantage of an adjoining room where a marble 
bath was set in the floor. Returning freshened 
from the plunge, with my sheet drawn around me, 
I found one of those skilled and gentle valets who 
seem less men than he-maids. 

“I am to dress monsieur when monsieur is 
ready,” said this person. 

“I am ready now,” I answered, and he led me 
into a suite of rooms and showed me an array 
which took my breath: dove-colored satin knee 
breeches, and a long embroidered coat of like color, 
a vest sprigged with rosebuds, cravat and lace ruf- 
fles, long silk stockings and shoes to match in ex- 
travagance, a shirt of fine lawn, and a hat for a 
nobleman. 

“Tell your master,” I said to the lackey, “that 
he intends me great kindness, but I prefer my own 
clothes.” 

“These are monsieur^s own clothes, made to his 
order and measure.” 

“But I gave no order, and I was not measured.” 


184 


Iv AZ ARRB 


The man raised his shoulders and elbows with 
gentlest dissent. 

^These are only a few articles of monsieur’s out- 
fit. Here is the key. If monsieur selects another 
costume he will find each one complete.” 

By magic as it seemed, there was a wardrobe full 
of fineries provided for my use. The man displayed 
them; in close trousers and coats with short fronts, 
or knee breeches and long tails ; costumes, he said, 
for the street, for driving, riding, traveling, for 
evening, and for morning; and one white satin 
court dress. At the marquis’ order he had laid out 
one for a ball. Of my old clothes not a piece was 
to be seen. 

The miracle was that what he put upon me fitted 
me. I became transformed like my servant and my 
secretary, and stood astonished at the result. 


VI 


4 ^ I NTER the prince of a fairy tale,” said the 
J j Marquis du Plessy when the lackey ush- 

ered me into the garden. 

It was a nest of amber at that time of sunset, and 
he waited for me at a table laid for supper, under 
a flat canopy of trees which had their tops trained 
and woven into a mat. 

I took his hand to kiss, but he rose up and mag- 
nificently placed me in a chair opposite himself. 

'‘Your benefits are heavy, monsieur,” I said. 
"How shall I acknowledge them?” 

"You owe me nothing at all,” he answered; "as 
you will see when I have told you a true story. 
It would sound like a lie if anything were incred- 
ible in'^these fabulous times.” 

"But you do not know anything about me.” 

"I am well instructed in your history, by that 
charming attendant in fringed leather breeches, 
who has been acquainted with you much longer 
than you have been acquainted with yourself.” 

"Yet I am not sure of deserving the marquis' 
interest.” 

"Has the marquis admitted that he feels any 
interest in you? Though this I will own: few 
experiences have affected me like your living eyes 
staring out of the face of my dead king!” 

185 


i86 


Iv AZ ARRE: 


We met each other again with a steady gaze like 
that in the mortuary chapel. 

^^Do you believe I am ?” 

“Do I believe you are ? Who said there 

was such a person in existence?’^ 

“Louis Philippe.” 

“The Duke of Orleans? Eh, bien! What does 
he know of the royal family? He is of the cadette 
branch.” 

“But he told me the princess, the dauphin’s 
sister, believes that the dauphin was taken alive 
from the Temple and sent to America.” 

“My dear Lazarre, I do not say the Duke of 
Orleans would lie — far be it from me — though 
these are times in which we courageously attack 
our betters. But he would not object to seeing 
the present pretender ousted. Why, since his father 
voted for the death of Louis XVI, he and his are 
almost outlawed by the older branch! Madame 
Royal, the Duchess of Angouleme, cannot endure 
him. I do not think she would speak to him!” 

“He is my friend,” I said stoutly. 

“Remember you are another pretender, and he 
has espoused your cause. I think him decent my- 
self — though there used to be some pretty stories 
told about him and the fair sentimentalist who 
educated him — Madame de Genlis. But I am an 
old man; I forget gossip.” 

My host gave lively and delicate attention to his 
food as it was brought, and permitted nothing to 
be overheard by his lackeys. 


L. AZ ARRK 


187 


The evening was warm, and fresh with the breath 
of June; and the garden, by a contrivance of lamps 
around its walls, turned into a dream world after 
sunset faded. 

It was as impossible to come to close terms with 
this noble of the old regime as with a butterfly. 
He alighted on a subject; he waved his wings, and 
rose. I felt a clumsy giant while he fluttered 
around my head, smiling, mocking, thrusting his 
pathos to the quick. 

^‘My dear boy, I do not say that I believe in you; 
I do not observe etiquette with you. But I am 
going to tell you a little story about the Tuileries. 
You have never seen the palace of the Tuileries?’’ 

I said I had not. 

‘Tt has been restored for the use of these Bona- 
partes. When I say these Bonapartes, Lazarre, I 
am not speaking against the Empire. The Empire 
gave me back my estates. I was not one of the 
stringent emigres. My estates are mine, whoever 
rules in France. You may consider me a betwixt- 
and-betweener. Do so. My dear boy, I am. My 
heart is with my dead king. My carcass is very 
comfortable, both in Paris and on my ancestral 
lands. Napoleon likes me as an ornament to his 
bourgeois court. I keep my opinion of him to 
myself. Do you like garlic, my boy?” 

I told him I was not addicted to the use of it. 

^^Garlic is divine. God gave it to man. A hint 
of it in the appropriate dish makes life endurable. 
I carry a piece in a gold box at the bottom of my 


i88 


Iv AZ ARRK 


vest pocket, that I may occasionally take it out and 
experience a sense of gratitude for divine bene- 
fits.” 

He took out his pet lump, rubbed it on the out- 
side of his wine bottle, poured out a glassful and 
drank it, smiling adorably at me in ecstasy! 

‘‘We were speaking of the Tuileries. You should 
have seen the place when it was sacked after the 
flight of the royal family. No, you should not have 
seen it! I am glad you were gone. Mirrors were 
shattered, and lusters, vases, china, gold candle- 
sticks, rolled about and were trampled on the floor. 
The paintings were stabbed with pikes; tables, 
screens, gilt stools, chairs crushed, and carpets cut 
to pieces; garments of all kinds strewn and tom; 
all that was not carried off by pillagers being thus 
destroyed. It was yet a horrible sight days after 
the mob had done their work, and slaughtered bod- 
ies of guards had been carried away, and commis- 
sioners with their clerks and assistants began to 
restore order.” 

“Did you see the Tuileries at that time, mon- 
sieur?” 

“I did. I put on the clothes of one of my peas- 
ants, slumped in Jacquot’s wooden shoes, and kept 
my mouth open as well as I could for the dust. The 
fantastic was yet in my blood. Exile takes that out 
of everybody except your royal uncle of Provence. 
But I knew in my heart what I would help do with 
that mob, if our turn ever came again!” 


A Z A R R K 189 

His dark eyes rested on the red wine as on a pool 
of blood. 

"'Sick of the ruin, I leaned out to look in the 
garden, from a window in the queen’s own apart- 
ment. I stepped on a shelf, which appeared fixed 
under the window ; but it moved, and I found that 
it could be pushed on grooves into the wall. There 
was a cavity made to hold it. It had concealed two 
armchairs placed opposite each other, so cunningly 
that their paneled sides yet looked a part of the 
thick wall. I sat down in one of them, and though 
the cushion was stiff, I felt something hard under 
it.” 

Monsieur du Plessy glanced around in every 
direction to satisfy himself that no ears lurked 
within hearing. 

“Eh, bien! Under the cushion I found the 
queen’s jewel-case! Diamonds — ^bags of gold coin 
— a half circlet of gems! — since the great necklace 
was lost such an array had not seen the light in 
France. The value must be far above a million 
francs.” 

The marquis fixed his eyes on me and said: 

“What should I have done with it, Lazarre?” 

“It belonged to the royal family,” I answered. 

“But everything which belonged to the royal 
family had been confiscated to the state. I had. just 
seen the belongings of the royal family trampled as 
by cattle. First one tyrant and then another rose 
up to tell us what we should do, to batten himself 
off the wretched commonwealth, and then go to the 


190 




guillotine before his successor. As a good citizen 
I should have turned these jewels and stones and 
coins over to the state. But I was acting the part 
of Jacquot, and as an honest peasant I whipped 
them under my blouse and carried them away. 
In my straits of exile I never decreased them. And 
you may take inventory of your property and claim 
it when we rise from the table.” 

My heart came up in my throat. I reached across 
and caught his hands. 

‘‘You believe in me — you believe in me!” 

“Do I observe any etiquette with you, Lazarre? 
This is the second time I have brought the fact to 
your notice. I particularly wish you to note that I 
do not observe any etiquette with you.” 

“What does a boy who has been brought up 
among Indians know about etiquette! But you 
accept me, or you could not put the property you 
have loyally and at such risk saved for my family, 
into my hands.” 

“I don’t accept even your uncle of Provence. The 
king of Spain and I prefer to call him by that mod- 
est title. Since you died or were removed from 
the Temple, he has taken the name of Louis 
XVIII, and maintained a court at the expense of 
the czar of Russia and the king of Spain. He is 
a fine Latinist; quotes Latin verse; and keeps the 
mass bells everlastingly ringing; the Russians 
laugh at his royal masses! But in my opinion the 
sacred gentleman is either moral slush or a very 
deep quicksand. It astonishes me,” said the Mar- 


L A2; ARRK 


191 

quis du Plessy, ‘‘to find how many people I do 
disapprove of! I really require very little of the 
people I am obliged to meet.” 

He smoothed my hands which were yet holding 
his, and exploded: 

“The Count of Provence is an old turtle! Not 
exactly a reptile, for there is food in him. But of 
a devilish flat head and cruel snap of the jaws!” 

“How can that be,” I argued, “when his niece 
loves him so? And even I, in the American woods, 
with mind eclipsed, was not forgotten. He sent me 
of the money that he was obliged to receive in 
charity!” 

“It is easy to dole out charity money; you are 
squeezing other people’s purses, not your own. 
What I most object to in the Count of Provence, 
is that assumption of kingly airs, providing the 
story is true which leaked secretly among the 
emigres. The story which I heard was that the 
dauphin had not died, but was an idiot in America. 
An idiot cannot reign. But the throne of France 
is not clamoring so loud for a Bourbon at present 
that the idiot’s substitute must be proclaimed and 
hold a beggar’s court. There are mad loyalists who 
swear by this eighteenth Louis. I am not one of 
them. In fact, Lazarre, I was rather out of tune 
with your house!” 

“Not you!” I said. 

“I do not fit in these times. I ought to have gone 
with my king and my friends under the knife. Often 
I am ashamed of myself for slipping away. That I 


192 


A.Z ARRE 


should live to see disgusting fools in the streets 
of Paris, after the Terror was over! — young men 
affecting the Greek and Roman manner — greeting 
one another by wagging of the head! They wore 
gray coats with black collars, gray or green cra- 
vats, carried cudgels, and decreed that all men 
should have the hair plaited, powdered, and fas- 
tened up with a comb, like themselves ! The wearer 
of a queue was likely to be knocked on the head. 
These creatures used to congregate at the old 
Feydeau theater, or meet around the entrance of 
the Louvre, to talk classical jargon, and wag!” 

The Marquis du Plessy drew himself together 
with a strong shudder. I had the desire to stand 
between him and the shocks of an alien world. 
Yet there was about him a tenacious masculine 
strength, an adroitness of self-protection which 
needed no champion. 

^‘Did the Indian tell you about a man named 
Bellenger?” I inquired. 

“Bellenger is part of the old story about the 
dauphin’s removal. I heard of him first at Cob- 
lenz. And I understand now that he is following 
you with another dauphin, and objecting to you 
in various delicate ways. Napoleon Bonaparte is 
master of France, and in the way to be master of 
Europe, because he has a nice sense of the values 
of men, and the best head for detail that was ever 
formed in human shape. There is something 
almost supernatural in his grasp of affairs. 
He lets nothing escape him. The only mis- 


Iv AZ ARRK 


193 


take he ever made was butchering the young 
Duke d’Enghien — the courage and clearness 
of the man wavered that one instant; and by the 
way, he borrowed my name for the duke’s incog- 
nito during the journey under arrest! England, 
Russia, Austria and Sweden are combining against 
Napoleon. He will beat them. For while other 
men sleep, or amuse themselves, or let circum- 
stance drive them, he is planning success and 
providing for all possible contingencies. Take a 
leaf out of the general’s book, my boy. No enemy 
is contemptible. If you want to force the hand of 
fortune — scheme! — scheme! — all the time! — out- 
scheme the other fellow!” 

The marquis rose from the table. 

“I am longer winded,” he said, '‘than a man 
named De Chaumont, who has been importuning 
Bonaparte, in season and out of season, to reinstate 
an American emigre, a Madame de Ferrier.” 

"Will Bonaparte restore her lands?” I asked, 
feeling my voice like a rope in my throat. 

"Do you know her family?” 

"I knew Madame de Ferrier in America.” 

"Their estate lies next to mine. And what is 
the little De Ferrier like since she is grown?” 

"A beautiful woman.” 

^‘Ah — ah! Bonaparte’s plan will then be easy of 
execution. You may see her this evening here in 
the Faubourg St. Germain. I believe she is to ap- 
pear at Madame de Permon’s, where Bonaparte 
may look in.” 


194 


LAZAR RK 


My host bolted the doors of his private cabinet, 
and took from the secret part of a wall cupboard 
the queen's jewel-case. We opened it between us. 
The first thing I noticed was a gold snuffbox, set 
with portraits of the king, the queen, and their two 
children. 

How I knew them I cannot tell. Their pictured 
faces had never been put before my conscious eyes 
until that moment. Other portraits might have 
been there. I had no doubt, no hesitation. 

I was on my knees before the face I had seen in 
spasms of remembrance — with oval cheeks, and fair 
hair rolled high — and open neck — my royal 
mother! 

Next I looked at the king, heavier of feature, 
honest and straight gazing, his chin held upward; 
at the little sister, a smaller miniature of the queen ; 
at the softly molded curves of the child that was 
myself! 

The marquis turned his back. 

Before I could speak I rose and put my arms 
around him. He wheeled, took my hand, stood 
at a little distance, and kissed it. 

We said not one word about the portraits, but 
sat down with the jewel-case again between us. 

“These stones and coins are also my sister's, 
Monsieur the Marquis?" 

He lifted his eyebrows. 

“I had ample opportunity, my dear boy, to turn 
them into the exchequer of the Count of Provence. 
Before his quarrel with the late czar of Russia he 


Iv A Z A R R K 


195 


maintained a dozen gentlemen-in-waiting, and per- 
haps as many ladies, to say nothing of priests, ser- 
vants, attendants of attendants, and guards. This 
treasure might last him two years. If the king of 
Spain and his majesty of Russia got wind of it, 
and shut off their pensions, it would not last so 
long. I am too thrifty a Frenchman to dissipate 
the hoards of the state in foreign parts! Yet, if 
you question my taste — I will not say my honesty, 
Lazarre ” 

‘T question nothing, monsieur! I ask advice.’^ 

“Eh, bien! Then do not be quite as punctilious 
as the gentleman who got turned out of the debtor 
side of Ste. Pelagie into an alley. ‘This will not 
do,’ says he. So around he posts to the entrance, 
and asks for admittance again!” 

“Catch me knocking at Ste. Pelagie for admit- 
tance again!” 

“Then my advice is to pay your tailor, if he has 
done his work acceptably.” 

“He has done it marvelously, especially in the 
fitting.” 

“A Parisian workman finds it no miracle to fit a 
man from his old clothes. I took the liberty of 
sending your orders. Having heard my little story, 
you understand that you owe me nothing but your 
society; and a careful inventory of this trust.” 

We were a long time examining the contents of 
the case. There were six bags of coin, all gold 
louis; many unset gems; rings for the hand; and 
clusters of various sorts which I knew not how to 


196 


AZ ARRK 


name, that blazed with a kind of white fire very 
dazzling. The half-way crown was crusted thick 
with colored stones the like of which I could not 
have imagined in my dreams. Their names, the 
marquis told me, were sapphires, emeralds, rubies; 
and large clear diamonds, like beads of rain. When 
everything was carefully returned to place, he 
asked: 

“Shall I still act as your banker?” 

I begged him to hide the jewel box again, and he 
concealed it in the wall. 

“We go to the Rue Ste. Croix, Lazarre, which 
is an impossible place for your friend Bellenger at 
this time. Do you dance a gavotte?” 

I told him I could dance the Indian corn dance, 
and he advised me to reserve this accomplishment. 

“Bonaparte’s police are keen on any scent, espe- 
cially the scent of a prince. His practical mind 
would reject the Temple story, if he ever heard it; 
and there are enough live Bourbons for him to 
watch.” 

“But there is the Count de Chaumont,” I sug- 
gested. 

“He is not a man that would put faith in the 
Temple story, either, and I understand he is kindly 
disposed towards you.” 

“I lived in his house nearly a year.” 

“He is not a bad fellow for the new sort. I feel 
certain of him. He is coaxing my friendship be- 
cause of ancient amity between the houses of Du 
Plessy and De Ferrier.” 


AZ ARRB 


197 

^^Did you say, monsieur, that Bonaparte intends 
to restore Madame de Perrier’s lands?” 

‘‘They have been given to one of his rising offi- 
cers.” 

“Then he will not restore them?” 

“Oh, yes, with interest! His plan is to give her 
the officer for a husband.” 


VII 


E ven in those days of falling upon adven- 
ture and taking hold of life with the ar- 
rogance of young manhood, I knew the value 
of money, though it has always been my fault to 
give it little consideration. Experience taught me 
that poverty goes afoot and sleeps with strange 
bed-fellows. But I never minded going afoot or 
sharing the straw with cattle. However, my secre- 
tary more than once took a high hand with me 
because he bore the bag; and I did mind debt 
chasing my heels like a rising tide. 

Our Iroquois had their cottages in St. Regis and 
their hunting cabins on Lake George. They went 
to church when not drunk and quarrelsome, paid 
the priest his dues, labored easily, and cared noth- 
ing for hoarding. But every step of my new life 
called for coin. 

As I look back on that hour the dominating 
thought rises clearly. 

To see men admitting that you are what you 
believe yourself to be, is one of the triumphs of 
existence. The jewel-case stamped identification 
upon me. I felt like one who had communicated 
with the past and received a benediction. There 
was special provision in the way it came to me; 
198 


Iv A Z A R R K 


199 

for man loves to believe that God watches over and 
mothers him. 

Forgetting — if I had ever heard — how the 
ancients dreaded the powers above when they had 
been too fortunate^ I went with the marquis in high 
spirits to the Rue Ste. Croix. There were pots of 
incense sending little wavers of smoke through the 
rooms, and the people might have peopled a dream. 
The men were indeed all smooth and trim; but the 
women had given rein to their fancies. 

Our hostess was a fair and gracious woman, of 
Greek ancestry, as Bonaparte himself was, and her 
daughter had been married to his favorite general, 
the marquis told me. 

I notice only the unusual in clothing; the scan- 
tiness of ladies’ apparel that clung like the skin, and 
lay upon the oak floor in ridges, among which a 
man must shove his way, was unusual to me. 

I saw, in space kept cleared around her chair, 
one beauty with nothing but sandals on her feet, 
though these were white as milk, silky skinned like 
a hand, and ringed with jewels around the toes. 

Bonaparte’s youngest sister stood receiving 
court. She was attired like a Bacchante, with bands 
of fur in her hair, topped by bunches of gold grapes. 
Her robe and tunic of muslin fine as air, woven in 
India, had bands of gold, clasped with cameos, un- 
der the bosom and on the arms. Each women 
seemed to have planned outdoing the others in 
conceits which marked her own fairness. 

I looked anxiously down the spacious room with- 


200 


Iv AZ ARRK 


out seeing Madame de Ferrier. The simplicity, 
which made for beauty of houses in France, struck 
me, in the white and gold paneling, and the chim- 
ney, which lifted its mass of design to the ceiling. 
I must have been staring at this and thinking of 
Madame de Ferrier when my name was called in a 
lilting and excited fashion: 

^Xazarre!” 

There was Mademoiselle de Chaumont in the 
midst of gallants, and better prepared to dance a 
gavotte than any other charmer in the room. For 
her gauze dress, fastened on the shoulders so that 
it fell not quite off her bosom, reached only to the 
middle of the calf. This may have been for the pro- 
tection of rosebuds with which ribbons drawn 
lengthwise through the skirt, were fringed; but 
it also showed her child-like feet and ankles, and 
made her appear tiptoe like a fairy, and more re- 
markable than any other figure except the bare- 
footed dame. She held a crook massed with rib- 
bons and rosebuds in her hand, rallying the men 
to her standard by the lively chatter which they 
like better than wisdom. 

Mademoiselle Annabel gave me her hand to 
kiss, and made room for the Marquis du Plessy 
and me in her circle. I felt abashed by the looks 
these courtiers gave me, but the marquis put them 
readily in the background, and delighted in the 
poppet, taking her quite to himself. 

“We hear such wonderful stories about you, 
Lazarre! Besides, Doctor Chantry came to see us 


AZ ARRB 


201 


and told us all he knew. Remember, Lazarre be- 
longed to us before you discovered him, Monsieur 
the Marquis du Plessy! He and I are Americans!’* 

Some women near us commented, as seemed to 
be the fashion in that society, with a frankness 
which Indians would have restrained. 

'‘See that girl! The emperor may now imagine 
what his brother Jerome has done! Her father has 
brought her over from America to marry her, and 
it will need all his money to accomplish that!” 

Annabel shook the rain of misty hair at the sides 
of her rose pink face, and laughed a joyful retort. 

"No wonder poor Prince Jerome had to go to 
America for a wife! Did you ever see such hairy 
faced frights as these Parisians of the Empire! 
Lazarre fell ill looking at them. He pretends he 
doesn’t see women, monsieur, and goes about with 
his coat skirts loaded with books. I used to be 
almost as much afraid of him as I am of you!” 

"Ah, mademoiselle, I dread to enter paradise.” 

"Why, monsieur?” 

"The angels are afraid of me!” 

"Not when you smile.” 

"Teach me that adorable smile of yours !” 

"Oh, how improving you will be to Lazarre, 
monsieur! He never paid me a compliment in his 
life. He never said anything but the truth.” 

"The lucky dog! What pretty things he had to 
say !” 

Annabel laughed and shook her mist in great 
enjoyment. I liked to watch her, yet I wondered 


202 




where Madame de Ferrier was, and could not bring 
myself to inquire. 

'These horrible incense pots choke me,” said 
Annabel. 

"I like them,” said the marquis. 

"Do you? So do I,” she instantly agreed with 
him. 

"Though we get enough incense in church.” 

"I should think so! Do you like mass?” 

"I was brought up on my knees. But I never 
acquired the real devotee’s back.” 

"Sit on your heels,” imparted Annabel in strict 
confidence. "Try it.” 

"I will. Ah, mademoiselle, any one who could 
bring such comfort into religion might make even 
wedlock endurable!” 

Madame de Ferrier appeared between the cur- 
tains of a deep window. She was talking with 
Count de Chaumont and an officer in uniform. 
Her face pulsed a rosiness like that quiver in win- 
ter skies which we call northern lights. The clothes 
she wore, being always subdued by her head and 
shoulders, were not noticeable like other women’s 
clothes. But I knew as soon as her eyes rested on 
me that she found me changed. 

De Chaumont came a step to meet me, and I felt 
miraculously equal to him, with some power which 
was not in me before. 

"You scoundrel, you have fallen into luck!” he 
said heartily. 


Iv A Z A R R K 


203 

‘^One of our proverbs is, 'A blind pig will find 
an acorn once in a while/ ” 

“There isn’t a better acorn in the woods, or one 
harder to shake down. How did you do it?” 

I gave him a wise smile and held my tongue; 
knowing well that if I had remained in Ste. Pelagie 
and the fact ever came to De Chaumont’s ears, like 
other human beings he would have reprehended my 
plunging into the world. 

“We are getting on tremendously, Lazarre! 
When your inheritance falls in, come back with me 
to Castorland. We will found a wilderness em- 
pire!” 

I did not inquire what he meant by my inheri- 
tance falling in. The marquis pressed behind me, 
and when I had spoken to Madame de Perrier I 
knew it was his right to take the hand of the woman 
who had been his little neighbor. 

“You don’t remember me, madame?” 

“Oh, yes, I do. Monsieur du Plessy; and your 
wall fruit, tool” 

“The rogue! Permit me to tell you those pears 
are hastening to be ready for you once more.” 

“And Bichette, monsieur — is dear old Bichette 
alive?” 

“She is alive, and draws the chair as well as ever. 
I hear you have a little son. He may love the 
old pony and chair as you used to love them.” 

“Seeing you, monsieur, is like coming again to 
my home!” 

“I trust you may come soon.” 


204 


L AZ ARRK 


They spoke of fruit and cattle. Neither dared 
mention the name of any human companion asso- 
ciated with the past. 

I took opportunity to ask Count de Chaumont 
if her lands were recovered. A baffled look troubled 
his face. 

‘The emperor will see her to-night,” he an- 
swered. “It is impossible to say what can be done 
until the emperor sees her.” 

“Is there any truth in the story that he will 
marry her to the officer who holds her estate?” 

The count frowned. 

“No — no! That’s impossible.” 

“Will the officer sell his rights if Madame de 
Perrier’s are not acknowledged?” 

“I have thought of that. And I want to consult 
the marquis.” 

When he had a chance to draw the marquis aside, 
I could speak to Madame de Perrier without being 
overheard; though my time might be short. She 
stood between the curtains, and the man in uniform 
had left his place tO' me. 

“Well, I am here,” I said. 

“And I am glad,” she answered. 

“I am here because I love you.” 

She held a fold of the curtain in her hand and 
looked down at it; then up at me. 

“You must not say that again.” 

“Why?” 

“You know why.” 

“I do not.” 


Iv A z A R R K 


205 


“Remember who you are/^ 

“I am your lover.” 

She looked quickly around the buzzing drawing- 
room^ and leaned cautiously nearer. 

“You are my sovereign.” 

“I believe that, Eagle. But it does not follow 
that I shall ever reign.” 

“Are you safe here? Napoleon Bonaparte has 
spies.” 

“But he has regard also for old aristocrats like 
the Marquis du Plessy.” 

“Yet remember what he did to the Duke d’En- 
ghien. A Bourbon prince is not allowed in 
France.” 

“How many people consider me a Bourbon 
prince? I told you why I am here. Fortune has 
wonderfully helped me since I came to France. 
Lazarre, the dauphin from the Indian camps, bra- 
zenly asks you to marry him. Eagle!” 

Her face blanched white, but she laughed. 

“No De Ferrier ever took a base advantage of 
royal favor. Don’t you think this is a strange con- 
versation in a drawing-room of the Empire? I 
hated myself for being here — until you came in.” 

“Eagle, have you forgotten our supper on the 
island?” 

“Yes, sire.” She scarcely breathed the word. 

“My unanointed title is Lazarre. And I suppose 
you have forgotten the fog and the mountain, 
too?” 

“Yes.” 


206 




^‘Lazarre!’^ 

‘^Yes, Lazarre.” 

‘‘You love me! You shall love me!” 

“As a De Ferrier should; no farther!” 

Her lifted chin expressed a strength I could not 
combat. The slight, dark-haired girl, younger 
than myself, mastered and drew me as if my spirit 
was a stream, and she the ocean into which it must 
flow. Darkness like that of Ste. Pelagie dropped 
over the brilliant room. I was nothing after all 
but a palpitating boy, venturing because he must 
venture. Light seemed to strike through her blood, 
however, endowing her with a splendid pallor. 

“I am going,” I determined that moment, “to 
Mittau.” 

The adorable curve of her eyelids, unlike any 
other eyelids I ever saw, was lost to me, for her 
eyes flew wide open. 

“To ” 

She looked around and hesitated to pronounce 
the name of the Count of Provence. 

“Yes. I am going to find some one who belongs 
to me.” 

“You have the marquis for a friend.” 

“And I have also Skenedonk, and our tribe, for 
my friends. But there is no one who understands 
that a man must have some love.” 

“Consult Marquis du Plessy about going to Mit- 
tau. It may not be wise. And war is threatened 
on the frontier.” 

“I will consult him, of course. But I am going.” 


Iv A Z A R R E 


207 


^'Lazarre, there were ladies on the ship who 
cursed and swore, and men who were drunk the 
greater part of the voyage. I was brought up in 
the old-fashioned way by the Saint-Michels, so I 
know nothing of present customs. But it seems 
to me our times are rude and wicked. And you, 
just awake to the world, have yet the innocence of 
that little boy who sunk into the strange and long 
stupor. If you changed I think I could not bear it!” 

‘‘I will not change.” 

A stir which must have been widening through 
the house as a ripple widens on a lake, struck us, 
and turned our faces with all others to a man who 
stood in front of the chimney. He was not large 
in person, but as an individual his presence was 
massive — was penetrating. I could have topped 
him by head and shoulders; yet without mastery. 
He took snuff as he slightly bowed in every direc- 
tion, shut the lid with a snap, and fidgeted as if 
impatient to be gone. He had a mouth of wonder- 
ful beauty and expression, and his eyes were more 
alive than the eyes of any other man in the assem- 
bly. I felt his gigantic force as his head dipped 
forward and he glanced about under his brows. 

'There is the emperor,” De Chaumont told 
Eagle; and I thought he made indecent haste to 
return and hale her away before Napoleon. 

The greatest soldier in Europe passed from one 
person to another with the air of doing his duty 
and getting rid of it. Presently he raised his voice, 


208 


Iv AZ ARRH 


speaking to Madame de Ferrier so that, all in the 
room might hear. 

“Madame, I am pleased to see that you wear 
leno. I do not like those English muslins, sold at 
the price of their weight in gold, and which do not 
look half as well as beautiful white leno. Wear 
leno, cambric, or silk, ladies, and then my m.anu- 
factures will flourish.’" 

I wondered if he would remember the face of the 
man pushed against his wheel and called an assas- 
sin, when the Marquis du Plessy named me to him 
as the citizen Lazarre. 

“You are a lucky man. Citizen Lazarre, to gain 
the marquis for your friend. I have been trying a 
number of years to make him mine.” 

“All Frenchmen are the friends of Napoleon,” 
the marquis said to me. 

I spoke directly to the sovereign, thereby vio- 
lating etiquette, my friend told me afterwards, 
laughing; and Bonaparte was a stickler for prece- 
dent. 

“But all Frenchmen,” I could not help reminding 
the man in power, “are not faithful friends.” 

He gave me a sharp look as he passed on, and 
repeated what I afterward learned was one of his 
favorite maxims: 

“A faithful friend is the true image.” 


VIII 


66iy/r UST you go to Mittau?” the Marquis 
JLVX du Plessy said when I told him what 
I intended to do. ‘‘It is a long, expensive 
post journey; and part of the way you may not be 
able to post. Riga, on the g;ulf beyond Mittau, is a 
fine old town of pointed gables and high stone 
houses. But when I was in Mittau I found it a mere 
winter camp of Russian nobles. The houses are low, 
one-story structures. There is but one castle, and in 
that his Royal Highness the Count of Provence 
holds mimic court.’’ 

We were riding to Versailles, and our horses 
almost touched sides as my friend put his hand on 
my shoulder. 

“Don’t go, Lazarre. You will not be welcome 
there.” 

“I must go, whether I am welcome or not.” 

“But I may not last until you come back.” 

“You will last. two months. Can’t I post to Mit- 
tau and back in two months?” 

“God knows.” 

I looked at him drooping forward in the saddle, 
and said: 

“If you need me I will stay, and think no more 
about seeing those of my own blood.” 

“I do need you; but you shall not stay. You 
209 


210 


Iv A Z A R R B 


shall go to Mittau in my own post-carriage. It 
will bring you back sooner.’’ 

But his post-carriage I could not accept. The 
venture to Mittau, its wear and tear and waste, 
were my own; and I promised to return with all 
speed. I could have undertaken the road afoot, 
driven by the necessity I felt. 

“The Duchess of Angouleme is a good girl,” said 
the marquis, following the line of my thoughts. 
“She has devoted herself to her uncle and her hus- 
band. When the late czar withdrew his pension, and 
turned the whole mimic court out of Mittau, she 
went with her uncle, and even waded the snow 
with him when they fell into straits. Diamonds 
given to her by her grandmother, the Empress 
Maria Theresa, she sold for his support. But the 
new czar reinstated them; and though they live 
less pretentiously at Mittau in these days, they still 
have their priest and almoner, the Duke of Guiche, 
and other courtiers hanging upon them. My boy, 
can you make a court bow and walk backwards? 
You must practice before going into Russia.” 

“Wouldn’t it be better,” I said, “for those who 
know how, to practice the accomplishment before 
me?” 

“Imagine the Count of Provence stepping down 
from playing royalty to do that!” my friend 
laughed. 

“I don’t know why he shouldn’t, since he knows 
I am alive. He has sent money every year for my 
support.” 


Iv AZ ARRK 


2II 


established custom,, Lazarre, gains strength 
every day it is continued. You see how hard it is 
to overturn an existing system, because men have 
to undo the work they have been doing perhaps 
for a thousand years. Time gives enormous sta- 
bility. Monsieur the Count of Provence has been 
practicing royalty since word went out that his 
nephew had died in the Temple. It will be no easy 
matter to convince him you are fit to play king in 
his stead.’' 

This did not disturb me, however. I thought 
more of my sister. And I thought of vast stretches 
across the center of Europe. The Indian stirred in 
me, as it always did stir, when the woman I wanted 
was withdrawn from me. 

I could not tell my friend, or any man, about 
Madame de Perrier. This story of my life is not 
to be printed until I am gone from the world. 
Otherwise the things set down so freely would re- 
main buried in myself. 

Some beggars started from hovels, running like 
dogs, holding diseased and crooked-eyed children 
up for alms, and pleading for God’s sake that we 
would have pity on them. When they disappeared 
with their coin I asked the marquis if there had 
always been wretchedness in France. 

“There is always wretchedness everywhere,” he 
answered. “Napoleon can turn the world upside 
down, but he cannot cure the disease of hereditary 
poverty. I never rode to Versailles without' en- 
countering these people.” 


212 


Iv AZ ARRK 


When we entered the Place d’Armes fronting 
the palace, desolation worse than that of the beg- 
gars faced us. That vast noble pile, untenanted 
and sacked, symbolized the vanished monarchy of 
France. Doors stood wide. The court was strewn 
with litter and filth; and grass started rank be- 
twixt the stones where the proudest courtiers in 
the world had trod. I tried to enter the queen^s 
rooms, but sat on the steps leading to them, hold- 
ing my head in my hands. It was as impossible 
as it had been to enter the Temple. 

The fountains which once made a concert of 
mist around their lake basin, satisfying like music, 
the marquis said, were dried, and the figures 
broken. Millions had been spent upon this domain 
of kings, and nothing but the summer’s natural 
verdyre was left to unmown stretches. The foot 
shrank from sending echoes through empty palace 
apartments, and from treading the weedy margins 
of canal and lake. 

^T should not have brought you here, Lazarre,” 
said my friend. 

‘T had to come, monsieur.” 

We walked through meadow and park to the 
little palaces called Grand and Petit Trianon, where 
the intimate life of the last royal family had been 
lived. I looked well at their outer guise, but could 
not explore them. 

The groom held our horses in the street that 
leads up to the Place d’Armes, and as we sauntered 


Iv AZ ARRB 


213 

back, I kicked old leaves which had fallen autumn 
after autumn and banked the path. 

It rushed over me again! 

I felt my arms go above my head as they did 
when I sunk into the depths of recollection. 

'‘Lazarre! Are you in a fit?” The Marquis du 
Plessy seized me. 

“I remember! I remember! I was kicking the 
leaves — I was walking with my father and mother 
— somewhere — somewhere — and something threat- 
ened us!” 

‘Tt was in the garden of the Tuileries,” said the 
Marquis du Plessy sternly. “The mob threatened 
you, and you were going before the National 
Assembly! I walked behind. I was there to help 
defend the king.” 

We stood still until the paroxysmal rending in 
my head ceased. Then I sat on the grassy road- 
side trying to smile at the marquis, and shrugging 
an apology for my weakness. The beauty of the 
arched trees disappeared, and when next I rec- 
ognized the world we were moving slowly toward 
Paris in a heavy carriage, and I was smitten with 
the conviction that my friend had not eaten the 
dinner he ordered in the town of Versailles. 

I felt ashamed of the weakness which came like 
an eclipse, and withdrew leaving me in my strength. 
It ceased to visit me within that year, and has never 
troubled me at all in later days. Yet, inconsistently, 

I look back as to the glamour of youth; and 


214 




though it worked me hurt and shame, I half regret 
that it is gone. 

The more I saw of the Marquis du Plessy the 
more my slow tenacious heart took hold on him. 
We went about everywhere together. I think it 
was his hope to wed me to his company and to 
Paris, and shove the Mittau venture into an indefi- 
nite future; yet he spared no pains in obtaining 
for me my passports to Courland. 

At this time, with cautious, half reluctant hand, 
he raised the veil from a phase of life which aston- 
ished and revolted me. I loved a woman. The 
painted semblances of women who inhabited a 
world of sensation had no effect upon me. 

‘‘You are wonderfully fresh, Lazarre,” the mar- 
quis said. ‘Tf you were not so big and male I 
would call you Mademoiselle! Did they never sin 
in the American backwoods?” 

Then he took me in his arms like a mother, and 
kissed me, saying, “Dear son and Sire, I am worse 
than your great-grandfather!” 

Yet my zest for the gaiety of the old city grew 
as much as he desired. The golden dome of the 
Invalides became my bubble of Paris, floating un- 
der a sunny sky. 

Whenever I went to the hotel which De Chau- 
mont had hired near the Tuileries, Madame de Per- 
rier received me kindly; having always with her 
Mademoiselle de Chaumont or Miss Chantry, so 
that we never had a word in private. I thought 
she might have shown a little feeling in her rebuff, 


Iv AZ ARRE: 


215 


and pondered on her point of view regarding my 
secret rank. De Chaumont, on the other hand, was 
beneath her in everything but wealth. How might 
she regard stooping to him? 

Miss Chantry was divided between enforced def- 
erence and a Saxon necessity to tell me I would 
not last. I saw she considered me one of the 
upstarts of the Empire, singularly favored above 
her brother, but under my finery the same French 
savage she had known in America. 

Eagle brought Paul to me, and he toddled across 
the floor, looked at me wisely, and then climbed 
my knee. 

Doctor Chantry had been living in Paris a life 
above his dreams of luxury. When occasionally I 
met my secretary he was about to drive out ; or he 
was returning from De Chaumont’s hotel. And 
there I caught my poor master reciting poems to 
Annabel, who laughed and yawned, and made faces 
behind her fan. I am afraid he drew on the marquis’ 
oldest wines, finding indulgence in the house; and 
he sent extravagant bills to me for gloves and lawn 
cravats. It was fortunate that De Chaumont took 
him during my absence. He moved his belongings 
with positive rapture. The marquis and I both 
thought it prudent not to publish my journey. 

Doctor Chantry went simpering, and abasing 
himself before the French noble with the complete 
subservience of a Saxon when a Saxon does be- 
come subservient. 

‘The fool is laughable,” said the Marquis du 


2I6 


Iv AZ ARRB 


Plessy. “Get rid of him, Lazarre. He is fit for 
nothing but hanging upon some one who will fee’d 
him/^ 

“He is my master/’ I answered. “I am a fool 
myself.” 

“You will come back from Mittau convinced of 
that, my boy. The wise course is to join yourself 
to events, and let them draw your chariot. My 
dislikers say I have temporized with fate. It is 
true I am not so righteous as to smell to heaven. 
But two or three facts have been deeply impressed 
on me. There is nothing more aggressive than 
the virtue of an ugly, untempted woman; or the 
determination of a young man to set every wrong 
thing in the world right. He cannot wait, and take 
mellow interest in what goes on around him, but 
must leap into the ring. You could live here with 
me indefinitely, while the nation has Bonaparte like 
the measles. When the disease has run its course 
— we may be able to bring evidence which will 
make it unnecessary for the Count of Provence 
to hasten here that France may have a king.” 

“I want to see my sister, monsieur.” 

“And lose her and your own cause forever.” 

But he helped me to hire a strong traveling 
chaise, and stock it with such comforts as it would 
bear. He also turned my property over to me, rec- 
ommending that I should not take it into Russia. 
Half the jewels, at least, I considered the property 
of the princess in Mittau; but his precaution in- 
fluenced me to leave three bags of coin in Doctor 


AZ ARRE^ 


217 


Chantry’s care ; for Doctor Chantry was the soul of 
thrift with his own ; and to send Skenedonk with the 
jewel-case to the marquis’ bank. The cautious 
Oneida took counsel of himself and hid it in the 
chaise. He told me when we were three days out. 

It is as true that you are driven to do some things 
as that you can never entirely free yourself from 
any life you have lived. That sunny existence in 
the Faubourg St. Germain, the morning and even- 
ing talks with a man who bound me to him as 
no other man has since bound me, were too dear to 
leave even briefly without wrenching pain. I 
dreamed nightly of robbers and disaster, of being 
ignominiously thrust out of Mittau, of seeing a 
woman whose face was a blur and who moved 
backward from me when I called her my sister; 
of troops marching across and trampling me into 
the earth as straw. I groaned in spirit. Yet to 
Mittau I was spurred by the kind of force that 
seems to press from unseen distances, and is as fatal 
as temperament. 

When I paid my last visit at De Chaumont’s 
hotel, and said I was going into the country. Eagle 
looked concerned, as a De Ferrier should; but she 
did not turn her head to follow my departure. The 
game of man and woman was in its most blindfold 
state between us. 

There was one, however, who watched me out 
of sight. The marquis was more agitated than I 
liked to see him. He took snuff with a constant 
click of the lid. 


2I8 


L.A.2: ARRB 


The hills of Champagne, green with vines, and 
white as with an underlay of chalk, rose behind 
us. We crossed the frontier, and German hills 
took their places, with a castle topping each. I was 
at the time of life when interest stretches eagerly 
toward every object; and though this journey 
cannot be set down in a story as long as mine, the 
novelty — even the risks, mischances and weari- 
nesses of continual post travel, come back like an 
invigorating breath of salt water. 

The usual route carried us eastward to Cracow, 
the old capital of Poland, scattered in ruined grand- 
eur within its brick walls. Beyond it I remember a 
stronghold of the Middle Ages called the fortress 
of Landskron. 

The peasants of this country, men in shirts and 
drawers of coarse linen, and women with braided 
hair hanging down under linen veils, stopped their 
carts as soon as a post-carriage rushed into sight, 
and bent almost to the earth. At post-houses the 
servants abased themselves to take me by the heel. 
In no other country was the spirit of man so 
broken. Poles of high birth are called the French- 
men of the north, and we saw fair men and women 
in sumptuous polonaises and long robes who ap- 
peared luxurious in their traveling carriages. But 
stillness and solitude brooded on the land. From 
Cracow to Warsaw wide reaches of forest darkened 
the level. Any open circle was belted around the 
horizon with woods, pines, firs, beech, birch, and 
small oaks. Few cattle fed on the pastures, and 


Iv AZ A.RRK 


219 

stunted crops of grain ripened in the melancholy 
light. 

From Cracow to Warsaw is a distance of one 
hundred and thirty leagues, if the postilion lied not, 
yet on that road we met but two carriages and not 
more than a dozen carts. Scattering wooden vil- 
lages, each a line of hovels, appeared at long inter- 
vals. 

Post-houses were kept by Jews, who fed us in 
the rooms where their families lived. Milk and 
eggs they had none to offer us; and their beds 
were piles of straw on the ground, seldom clean, 
never untenanted by fleas. 

Beggars ran beside us on the wretched roads as 
neglected as themselves. Where our horses did 
not labor through sand, the marshy ground was 
paved with sticks and boughs, or the surface was 
built up with trunks of trees laid crosswise. 

In spacious, ill-paved Warsaw, through which 
the great Vistula flows, we rested two days. I knelt 
with confused thoughts, trying to pray in the 
Gothic cathedral. We walked past it into the old 
town, of high houses and narrow streets, like a 
part of Paris. 

In Lithuania the roads were paths winding 
through forests full of stumps and roots. The car- 
riage hardly squeezed along, and eight little horses 
attached to it in the Polish way had much ado to 
draw us. The postilions were young boys in coarse 
linen, hardy as cattle, who rode bare-back league 
upon league. 


220 


Iv AZ ARRK 


Old bridges cracked and sagged when we crossed 
them. And here the forests rose scorched and black 
in spots, because the peasants, bound to pay their 
lords turpentine, fired pines and caught the heated 
ooze. 

Within the proper boundary of Russia our way 
was no better. There we saw queer projections of 
boards around trees to keep bears from climbing 
after the hunters. 

The Lithuanian peasants had few wants. Their 
carts were put together without nails. Their bridles 
and traces were made of bark. They had no tools 
but hatchets. A sheepskin coat and round felt 
cap kept a man warm in cold weather. His shoes 
were made of bark, and his home of logs with pent- 
house roof. 

In houses where travelers slept the candles were 
laths of deal, about five feet long, stuck into crev- 
ices of the wall or hung over tables. Our hosts 
carried them about, dropping unheeded sparks 
upon the straw beds. 

In Grodno, a town of falling houses and ruined 
palaces, we rested again before turning directly 
north. 

There my heart began to sink. We had spent 
four weeks on a comfortless road, working always 
toward the goal. It was nearly won. A speech of 
my friend the marquis struck itself out sharply in 
the northern light. 

“You are not the only Pretender, my dear boy. 
Don’t go to Mittau expecting to be hailed as a 


Iv AZ ARRK 


221 


novelty. At least two peasants have starte/i up 
claiming to be the prince who did not die in the 
Temple, and have been cast down again, complain- 
ing of the treatment of their dear sister! The Count 
d’Artois says he would rather saw wood for a liv- 
ing than be king after the English fashion. I would 
rather be the worthless old fellow I am than be 
king after the Mittau fashion; especially when his 
Majesty, Louis XVIII, sees you coming!” 


IX 


P urposely we entered Mittau after dusk, 
coming through wheat lands to where a 
network of streams forms the river Aa. In 
this broad lap of the province of Courland sat Mit- 
tau. Yelgava it was called by the people among 
whom we last posted, and they pronounced the 
word as if naming something as great as Paris. 

It was already July, St. John’s day being two 
weeks gone; yet the echoes of its markets and 
feastings lingered. The word “J^^hanni” smote 
even an ear deaf to the language. It was like a 
dissolving fair. 

“You are too late for Johanni,” said the German 
who kept the house for travelers, speaking the kind 
of French we heard in Poland. “Perhap it is just 
as well for you. This Johanni has nearly ruined 
me!” 

Yet he showed a disposition to hire my singular 
servant from me at a good wage, walking around 
and around Skenedonk, who bore the scrutiny like 
a pine tree. 

The Oneida enjoyed his travels. It was easy for 
him to conform to the thoughts and habits of Eu- 
rope. We had not talked about the venture into 
Russia. He simply followed me where I went 
222 


Iv AZ ARRB 


223 


without asking questions, proving himself faithful 
friend and liberal minded gentleman. 

We supped privately, and I dressed with care. 
Horses were put in for our last short post of a few 
streets. We had suffered such wretched quarters 
on the way that the German guest-house spread 
itself commodiously. Yet its walls were the flim- 
siest slabs. I heard some animal scratching and 
whining in the next chamber. On the post-road, 
however, we had not always a wall betwixt our- 
selves and the dogs. 

The palace in Mittau stood conspicuous upon an 
island in the river. As we approached, it looked 
not unlike a copy of Versailles. The pile was by 
no means brilliant with lights, as the court of a 
king might glitter, finding reflection upon the 
stream. We drove with a clatter upon the paving, 
and a sentinel challenged us. 

I had thought of how I should obtain access to 
this secluded royal family, and Skenedonk was 
ready with the queen’s jewel-case in his hands. Not 
on any account was he to let it go out of them until 
I took it and applied the key; but gaining audience 
with Madame d’Angouleme, he was to tell her that 
the bearer of that casket had traveled far to see her, 
and waited outside. 

Under guard the Oneida had the great doors 
shut behind him. The wisdom of my plan looked 
less conspicuous as time went by. The palace 
loomed silent, without any cheer of courtiers. The 
horses shook their straps, and the postilion hung 


224 


Iv AZ ARRK 


lazily by one leg, his figure blurred against the low 
dark horizon. Some Mittau noises came across 
the Aa, the rumble of wheels, and a barking of 
dogs. 

When apprehension began to pinch my heart 
of losing my servant and my whole fortune in the 
abode of honest royal people, and I felt myself but 
a poor outcast come to seek a princess for my sis- 
ter, a guard stood by the carriage, touching his cap, 
and asked me to follow him. 

We ascended the broad steps. He gave the pass- 
word to a sentinel there, and held wide one leaf of 
the door. He took a candle; and otherwise dark 
corridors and ante-chambers, somber with heavy 
Russian furnishings, rugs hung against the walls, 
barbaric brazen vessels and curious vases, passed 
like a half-seen vision. 

Then the guard delivered me to a gentleman in 
a blue coat, with a red collar, who belonged to the 
period of the Marquis du Plessy without being 
adorned by his whiteness and lace. The gentleman 
staring at me, strangely polite and full of suspicion, 
conducted me into a well-lighted room where 
Skenedonk waited by the farther door, holding the 
jewel-case as tenaciously as he would a scalp. 

I entered the farther door. It closed behind me. 

A girl stood in the center of this inner room, 
looking at me. I remember none of its fittings, 
except that there was abundant light, showing her 
clear blue eyes and fair hair, the transparency of 
her skin, and her high expression. She was all 


4 


ARRK 


225 


in black, except a floating muslin cape or fichu, 
making a beholder despise the finery of the Em- 
pire. 

We must have examined each other even sternly, 
though I felt a sudden giving way and heaving in 
my breast. She was so high, so sincere! If I had 
been unfit to meet the eyes of that princess I must 
have shriveled before her. 

From side to side her figure swayed, and another 
young girl, the only attendant in the room, 
stretched out both arms to catch her. 

We put her on a couch, and she sat gasping, 
supported by the lady in waiting. Then the tears 
ran down her face, and I kissed the transparent 
hands, my own flesh and blood, I believed that 
hour as I believe to this. 

“O Louis — Louis!’' 

The wonder of her knowledge and acceptance of 
me, without a claim being put forward, was around 
me like a cloud. 

‘‘You were so like my father as you stood there 
— I could see him again as he parted from us ! What 
miracle has restored you? How did you find your 
way here? You are surely Louis?” 

I sat down beside her, keeping one hand between 
mine. 

“Madame, I believe as you believe, that I am 
Louis Charles, the dauphin of France. And I 
have come to you first, as my own flesh and blood, 
who must have more knowledge and recollection of 
things past than I myself can have. I have not 


226 


AZ ARRB 


long been waked out of the tranced life I formerly 
lived.” 

“I have wept more tears for the little brother — 
broken in intellect and exiled farther than we — 
than for my father and mother. They were at 
peace. But you, poor child, what hope was there 
for you? Was the person who had you in his 
charge kind to you? He must have been. You 
have grown to be such a man as I would have you!” 

“Everybody has been kind to me, my sister.” 

“Could they look in that face and be unkind? All 
the thousand questions I have to ask must be de- 
ferred until the king sees you. I cannot wait for 
him to see you! Mademoiselle de Choisy, send a 
message at once to the king!” 

The lady in waiting withdrew to the door, and 
the royal duchess quivered with eager anticipation. 

“We have had pretended dauphins, to add insult 
to exile. You may not take the king unaware as 
you took me! He will have proofs as plain as his 
Latin verse. But you will find his majesty all that 
a father could be to us, Louis ! I think there never 
was a man so unselfish! — except, indeed, my hus- 
band, whom you cannot see until he returns.” 

Again I kissed my sister’s hand. We gazed at 
each other, our different breeding still making 
strangeness between us, across which I yearned, 
and she examined me. 

Many a time since I have reproached myself for 
not improving those moments with the most can- 
did and right-minded princess in Europe, by fore- 


Iv AZ ARRB 


227 


stalling my enemies. I should have told her of my 
weakness instead of sunning my strength in the 
love of her. I should have made her see my actual 
position, and the natural antagonism of the king, 
who would not so readily see a strong personal 
resemblance when that was not emphasized by some 
mental stress, as she and three very different men 
had seen it. 

Instead of making cause with her, however, I 
said over and over — “Marie-Therese! Marie- 
Therese!” — like a homesick boy come again to 
some familiar presence. ^‘You are the only one of 
my family I have seen since waking ; except Louis 
Philippe.’’ 

"‘Don’t speak of that man, Louis! I detest the 
house of Orleans as a Christian should detest only 
sin! His father doomed ours to death!” 

“But he is not to blame for what his father did.” 

“What do you mean by waking?” 

“Coming to my senses.” 

“All that we shall hear about when the king sees 
you.” 

“I knew your picture on the snuffbox.” 

“What snuffbox?” 

“The one in the queen’s jewel-case.” 

“Where did you find that jewel-case?” 

“Do you remember the Marquis du Plessy?” 

“Yes. A lukewarm loyalist, if loyalist at all in 
these times.” 

“My best friend.” 

“I will say for him that he was not among the first 


228 


AZ ARRB 


emigres. If the first emigres had stayed at home 
and helped their king, they might have prevented 
the Terror.” 

'The Marquis du Plessy stayed after the Tui- 
leries was sacked. He found the queen’s jewel-case, 
and saved it from confiscation to the state.” 

"Where did he find it? Did you recognize the 
faces?” 

"Oh, instantly!” 

The door opened, deferring any story, for that 
noble usher who had brought me to the presence 
of Marie-Therese stood there, ready to conduct us 
to the king. 

My sister rose and I led her by the hand, she 
going confidently to return the dauphin to his fam- 
ily, and the dauphin going like a fool. Seeing Sken- 
edonk standing by the door, 1 must stop and fit 
the key to the lock of the queen’s casket, and throw 
the lid back to show her proofs given me by one 
who believed in me in spite of himself. The snuff- 
box and two bags of coin were gone, I saw with con- 
sternation, but the princess recognized so many 
things that she missed nothing, controlling herself 
as her touch moved from trinket to trinket that her 
mother had worn. 

"Bring this before the king,” she said. And we 
took it with us, the noble in blue coat and red collar 
carrying it. 

"His Majesty,” Marie-Therese told me as we 
passed along a corridor, "tries to preserve the eti- 
quette of a court in our exile. But we are paupers. 


Iv AZ ARRK 


229 


Louis. And mocking our poverty, Bonaparte 
makes overtures to him to sell the right of the Bour- 
bons to the throne of France!’’ 

She had not yet adjusted her mind to the fact 
that Louis XVIII was no longer the one to be 
treated with by Bonaparte or any other potentate, 
and the pretender leading her smiled like the boy 
of twenty that he was. 

^^Napoleon can have no peace while a Bourbon in 
the line of succession lives.” 

*^Oh, remember the Duke d’Enghien!” she whis- 
pered. 

Then the door of a lofty but narrow cabinet, 
lighted with many candles, was opened, and I saw 
at the farther end a portly gentleman seated in an 
arm-chair. 

A few gentlemen and two ladies in waiting, be- 
sides Mademoiselle de Choisy, attended. 

Louis XVIII rose from his seat as my sister 
made a deep obeisance to him, and took her hand 
and kissed it. At once, moved by some singular 
maternal impulse, perhaps, for she was half a dozen 
years my senior, as a mother would whimsically 
decorate her child, Marie-Therese took the half 
circlet of gems from the casket, reached up, and set 
it on my head. 

For an instant I was crowned in Mittau, with 
my mother’s tiara. 

I saw the king’s features turn to granite, and a 
dark red stain show on his jaws like coloring on 
stone. The most benevolent men, and by all his 


230 


Iv AZ ARRK 


traits he was one of the most benevolent, have their 
pitiless moments. He must have been prepared to 
combat a pretender before I entered the room. 
But outraged majesty would now take its full ven- 
geance on me for the unconsidered act of the child 
he loved. 

“First two peasants, Hervagault and Bruneau, 
neither of whom had the audacity to steal into the 
confidence of the tenderest princess in Europe with 
the tokens she must recognize, or to penetrate into 
the presence,” spoke the king: “and now an escaped 
convict from Ste. Pelagic, a dandy from the Em- 
pire !” 

I was only twenty, and he stung me. 

“Your royal highness,” I said, speaking as I 
believed within my rights, “my sister tries to put 
a good front on my intrusion into Mittau.” 

I took the coronet from my head and gave it 
again to the hand which had crowned me. Marie- 
Therese let it fall, and it rocked near the feet of the 
king. 

“Your sister, monsieur! What right have you 
to call Madame d’Angouleme your sister!” 

“The same right, monsieur, that you have to call 
her your niece.” 

The features of the princess became pinched and 
sharpened under the softness of her fair hair. 

“Sire, if this is not my brother, who is he?” 

Louis XVIII may have been tender to her every 
other moment of his life, but he was hard then, and 


Iv AZ ARRB 


231 

looked beyond her toward the door, making a sign 
with his hand. 

That strange sympathy which works in me for 
my opponent, put his outraged dignity before me 
rather than my own wrong. Deeper, more sick- 
ening than death, the first faintness of self-distrust 
came over me. What if my half-memories were 
unfounded hallucinations? What if my friend 
Louis Philippe had made a tool of me, to annoy this 
older Bourbon branch that detested him? What 
if BellengePs recognition, and the Marquis du 
Plessy’s, and Marie-Therese’s, went for nothing? 
What if some other, and not this angry man, had 
sent the money to America — 

The door opened again. We turned our heads, 
and I grew hot at the cruelty which put that idiot 
before my sister’s eyes. He ran on all fours, his 
gaunt wrists exposed, until Bellenger, advancing 
behind, took him by the arm and made him stand 
erect. It was this poor creature I had heard scratch- 
ing on the other side of the inn wall. 

How long Bellenger had been beforehand with 
me in Mittau I could not guess. But when I saw 
the scoundrel who had laid me in Ste. Pelagie, and 
doubtless dropped me in the Seine, ready to do me 
more mischief, smug and smooth shaven, and fine 
in the red-collared blue coat which seemed to be 
the prescribed uniform of that court, all my confi- 
dence returned. I was Louis of France. I could 
laugh at anything he had to say. 

Behind him entered a priest, who advanced up 


232 Iv A Z A R R H 

the room, and made obeisance to the king, as Bel- 
lenger did. 

Madame d’Angouleme looked once at the idiot, 
and hid her eyes: the king protecting her. I said 
to myself, 

will soon be against my breast, not yours, that 
she hides her face, my excellent uncle of Prov- 
ence!” 

Yet he was as sincere a man as ever said to wit- 
nesses, 

“We shall now hear the truth.” 

The few courtiers, enduring with hardiness a 
sight which they perhaps had seen before though 
Madame d’Angouleme had not, made a rustle 
among themselves as if echoing, 

“Yes, now we shall hear the truth!” 

The king again kissed my sister’s hand, and 
placed her in a seat beside his arm-chair, which he 
resumed. 

“Monsieur the Abbe Edgeworth,” he said, “hav- 
ing stood on the scaffold with our martyred sov- 
ereign, as priest and comforter, is eminently the 
one to conduct an examination like this, which 
touches matters of conscience. We leave it in his 
hands.” 

Abbe Edgeworth, fine and sweet of presence, 
stood by the king, facing Bellenger and the idiot. 
That poor creature, astonished by his environment, 
gazed at the high room corners, or smiled experi- 
mentally at the courtiers, stretching his cracked 
lips over darkened fangs. 


IvAZ ARRK 


233 


^'You are admitted here, Bellenger,’^ said the 
priest, ^'to answer his majesty’s questions in the 
presence of witnesses.” 

“I thank his majesty,” said Bellenger. 

The abbe began as if the idiot attracted his notice 
for the first time. 

^‘Who is the unfortunate child you hold with 
your right hand?” 

'The dauphin of France, monsieur the abbe,” 
spoke out Bellenger, his left hand on his hip. 

"What! Take care what you say! How do you 
know that the dauphin of France is yet among the 
living?” 

Bellenger’s countenance changed, and he took his 
hand off his hip and let it hang down. 

"I received the prince, monsieur, from those who 
took him out of the Temple prison.” 

"And you never exchanged him for another per- 
son, or allowed him to be separated from you?” 

Bellenger swore with ghastly lips — "Never, on 
my hopes of salvation, monsieur the abbe !” 

"Admitting that somebody gave you this child to 
keep — by the way, how old is he?” 

"About twenty years, monsieur.” 

"What right had you to assume he was the 
dauphin?” 

"I had received a yearly pension, monsieur, from 
his majesty himself, for the maintenance of the 
prince.” 

"You received the yearly pension through my 
hand, acting as his majesty’s almoner. His majesty 


234 


Iv A. ^ A R R E) 

was ever too bountiful to the unfortunate. He has 
many dependents. Where have you lived with your 
charge?’* 

“We lived in America, sometimes in the woodSj 
and sometimes in towns.” 

“Has he ever shown hopeful signs of recovering 
his reason?” 

“Never, monsieur the abbe.” 

Having touched thus lightly on the case of the 
idiot, Abbe Edgeworth turned to me. 

The king’s face retained its granite hardness. 
But Bellenger’s passed from shade to shade of 
baffled confidence; recovering only when the priest 
said, 

“Now look at this young man. Have you ever 
seen him before?” 

“Yes, monsieur, I have; both in the American 
woods, and in Paris.” 

“What was he doing in the American woods?” 

“Living on the bounty of one Count de Chau- 
mont, a friend of Bonaparte’s.” 

“Who is he?” 

“A French half-breed, brought up among the 
Indians.” 

“What name does he bear?” 

“He is called Lazarre.” 

“But why is a French half-breed named Lazarre 
attempting to force himself on the exiled court here 
in Mittau?” 

“People have told him that he resembles the 
Bourbons, monsieur.” 


Iv AZ ARRB 


235 

he encouraged in this idea by the friend of 
Bonaparte whom you mentioned?’' 

‘‘1 think not, monsieur the abbe. But I heard a 
Frenchman tell him he was like the martyred king, 
and since that hour he has presumed to consider 
himself the dauphin.” 

'‘Who was this Frenchman?” 

“The Duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe de Bour- 
bon, monsieur the abbe.” 

There was an expressive movement among the 
courtiers. 

“Was Louis Philippe instrumental in sending him 
to France?” 

“He was. He procured shipping for the pre- 
tender.” 

“When the pretender reached Paris, what did 
he do?” 

“He attempted robbery, and was taken in the act 
and thrown into Ste. Pelagie. I saw him arrested.” 

“What were you doing in Paris?” 

“I was following and watching this dangerous 
pretender, monsieur the abbe.” 

“Did you leave America when he did?” 

“The evening before, monsieur. And we out- 
sailed him.” 

“Did you leave Paris when he did?” 

“Three days later, monsieur. But we passed him 
while he rested.” 

“Why do you call such an insignificant person a 
dangerous pretender?” 


236 


ARRE^ 


“He is not insignificant, monsieur: as you will 
say, when you hear what he did in Paris.” 

“He was thrown into the prison of Ste. Pelagie, 
you told me.” 

“But he escaped, by choking a sacristan so that 
the poor man will long bear the marks on his throat. 
And the first thing I knew he was high in favor 
with the Marquis du Plessy, and Bonaparte spoke 
to him; and the police laughed at complaints 
lodged against him.” 

“Who lodged complaints against him?” 

“I did, monsieur.” 

“But he was too powerful for you to touch?” 

“He was well protected, monsieur the abbe. He 
flaunted. While the poor prince and myself suffered 
inconvenience and fared hard — ” 

“The poor prince, you say?” 

“We never had a fitting allowance, monsieur,” 
Bellenger declared aggressively. “Yet with little 
or no means I tried to bring this pretender to jus- 
tice and defend his Majesty’s throne.” 

“Pensioners are not often so outspoken in their 
dissatisfaction,” remarked the priest. 

I laughed as I thought of the shifts to which Bel- 
lenger must have been put. Abbe Edgeworth with 
merciless dryness inquired, 

“How were you able to post to Mittau?” 

“I borrowed money of a friend in Paris, mon- 
sieur, trusting that his Majesty will requite me for 
my services.” 

“But why was it necessary for you to post to Mit- 


Iv AZ ARRH 


237 

tau, where this pretender would certainly meet ex- 
posure?” 

^^Because I discovered that he carried with him a 
casket of the martyred queen’s jewels, stolen from 
the Marquis du Plessy.” 

^‘How did the Marquis du Plessy obtain posses- 
sion of the queen’s jewels?” 

‘That I do not know.” 

“But the jewels are the lawful property of Ma- 
dame d’Angouleme. He must have known they 
would be seized.” 

“I thought it necessary to bring my evidence 
against him, monsieur.” 

“There was little danger of his imposing himself 
upon the court. Yet you are rather to be com- 
mended than censured, Bellenger. Did this pre- 
tender know you were in Paris?” 

“He saw me there.” 

“Many times?” 

“At least twice, monsieur the abbe.” 

“Did he avoid you?” 

“I avoided him. I took pains to keep him from 
knowing how I watched him.” 

“You say he flaunted. When he left Paris for 
Mittau was the fact generally reported?” 

“No, monsieur.” 

“You learned it yourself?” 

“Yes, monsieur.” 

“But he must have known you would pursue 
him.” 

“He left with great secrecy, monsieur the abbe.” 


238 ly A. Z A R R 

It was given out that he was merely going to the 
country.” 

'‘What made you suspect he was coming to Mit- 
tau?” 

“He hired a strong post-chaise and made many 
preparations.” 

“But didn’t his friend the Marquis du Plessy dis- 
cover the robbery? Why didn’t he follow and take 
the thief?” 

“Dead men don’t follow, monsieur the abbe. The 
Marquis du Plessy had a duel on his hands, and was 
killed the day after this Lazarre left Paris.” 

Of all Bellenger’s absurd fabrications this story 
was the most ridiculous. I laughed again. Madame 
d’Angouleme took her hands from her face and our 
eyes met one instant, but the idiot whined like a 
dog. She shuddered, and covered her sight. 

The priest turned from Bellenger to me with a 
fair-minded expression, and inquired, 

“What have you to say?” 

I had a great deal to say, though the only hearer 
I expected to convince was my sister. If she be- 
lieved in me I did not care whether the others 
believed or not. I was going to begin with Lake 
George, the mountain, and the fog, and Bellen- 
ger’s fear of me, and his rage when Louis Philippe 
told him the larger portion of the money sent from 
Europe was given to me. 

Facing Marie-Therese, therefore, instead of the 
Abbe Edgeworth, I spoke her name. She looked 


Iv AZ A.RRK 


239 

tip once more. And instead of being in Mittau, I 
was suddenly on a balcony at Versailles! 

The night landscape, chill and dim, stretched be- 
yond a multitude of roaring mouths, coarse lips, 
flaming eyes, illuminated by torches, the heads 
ornamented with a three-colored thing stuck into 
the caps. My hand stretched out for support, and 
met the tight clip of my mother’s fingers. I knew 
that she was towering between Marie-Therese and 
me a fearless palpitating statue. The devilish roar- 
ing mob shot above itself a forced, admiring, pierc- 
ing cry — ''Long live the queen!” Then all be- 
came the humming of bees — the vibration of a 
string — nothing! 


X 


B lackness surrounded the post-carriage 
in which I woke, and it seemed to stand in 
a tunnel that was afire at one end. Two huge 
trees, branches and all, were burning on a big 
hearth, stones glowing under them; and figures 
with long beards, in black robes, passed betwixt 
me and the fire, stirring a cauldron. If ever witches’ 
brewing was seen, it looked like that. 

The last eclipse of mind had come upon me with- 
out any rending and tearing in the head, and facts 
returned clearly and directly. I saw the black 
robed figures were Jews cooking supper at a large 
fireplace, and we had driven upon the brick floor 
of a post-house which had a door nearly the size of 
a gable. At that end spread a ghostly film of open 
land, forest and sky. I lay stretched upon cushions 
as well as the vehicle would permit, and was aware 
by a shadow which came between me and the Jews 
that Skenedonk stood at the step. 

“What are you about?” I spoke with a rush of 
chagrin, sitting up. “Are we on the road to Paris?” 
“Yes,” he answered. 

“You have made a mistake, Skenedonk!” 

“No mistake,” he maintained. “Wait until I 
bring you some supper. After supper we can talk.” 
^40 


ly AZ ARRB 


241 

‘'Bring the supper at once then, for I am 
going to talk now.” 

"Are you quite awake?” 

"Quite awake. How long did it last this time?” 

"Two days.” 

"We are not two days^ journey out of Mittau?” 

"Yes.” 

"Well, when you have horses put in to-morrow 
morning, turn them back to Mittau.” 

Skenedonk went to the gigantic hearth, and one 
of the Jews ladled him out a bowlful of the caul- 
dron stew, which he brought to me. 

The stuff was not offensive and I was hungry. 
He brought another bowlful for himself, and we 
ate as we had often done in the woods. The fire 
shone on his bald pate and gave out the liquid lights 
of his fawn eyes. 

"I have made a fool of myself in Mittau, Skene- 
donk.” 

"Why do you want to go back?” 

"Because I am not going to be thrown out of 
the palace without a hearing.” 

"What is the use?” said Skenedonk. "The old 
fat chief will not let you stay. He doesn’t want to 
hear you talk. He wants to be king himself.” 

"Did you see me sprawling on the floor like the 
idiot?” 

"Not like the idiot. Your face was down.” 

"Did you see the duchess?” 

"Yes.” 

"What did she do?” 


242 


Iv AZ AR RH 


‘^Nothing. She leaned on the women and they 
took her away.” 

'Tell me all you saw.” 

"When you went in to hold council, I watched, 
and saw a priest and Bellenger and the boy that 
God had touched, all go in after you. So I knew 
the council would be bad for you, Lazarre, and I 
stood by the door with my knife in my hand. When 
the talk had gone on awhile I heard something like 
the dropping of a buck on the ground, and sprang 
in, and the men drew their swords and the women 
screamed. The priest pointed at you and said, 'God 
has smitten the pretender!^ Then they all went out 
of the room except the priest, and we opened your 
collar. I told him you had fallen like that before, 
and the stroke passed off in sleep. He said your 
carriage waited, and if I valued your safety I would 
put you in it and take you out of Russia. He called 
servants to help me carry you. I thought about 
your jewels; but some drums began to beat, and I 
thought about your life!” 

"But, Skenedonk, didn’t my sister — the lady I 
led by the hand, you remember — speak to me 
again, or look at me, or try to revive me?” 

"No. She went away with the women carrying 
her.” 

"She believed in me — at first! Before I said a 
word she knew me! She wouldn’t leave me merely 
because her uncle and a priest thought me an im- 
postor! She is the tenderest creature on earth, 


L AZ A RRK 


243 

Skenedonk — she is more like a saint than a wom- 
an!” 

“Some saints on the altar are blind and deaf,” 
observed the Oneida. “I think she was sick.” 

“I have nearly killed her! And I have been tum- 
bled out of Mittau as a pretender!” 

“You are here. Get some men to fight, and we 
will go back.” 

“What a stroke — to lose my senses at the mo- 
ment I needed them most!” 

“You kept your scalp.” 

“And not much else. No! If you refuse to fol- 
low me, and wait here at this post-house, I am 
going back to Mittau!” 

“I go where you go,” said Skenedonk. “But best 
go to sleep now.” 

This I was not able to do until long tossing on 
the thorns of chagrin wore me out. I was ashamed 
like a prodigal, baffled, and hurt to the bruising of 
my soul. A young man’s chastened confidence in 
himself is hard to bear, but the loss of what was 
given as a heritage at birth is an injustice not to 
be endured. 

The throne of France was never my goal, to be 
reached through blood and revolution. Perhaps 
the democratic notions in my father’s breast have 
found wider scope in mine. I wanted to influence 
men, and felt even at that time that I could do it; 
but being king was less to my mind that being 
acknowledged dauphin, and brother, and named 
with my real name. 


244 


Iv A Z A R R B 


I took my fists in my hands and swore to force 
recognition, if I battered a lifetime on Mittau. 

At daylight our post-horses were put to the 
chaise and I gave the postilion orders myself. The 
little fellow bowed himself nearly double, and said 
that troops were moving behind us to join the allied 
forces against Napoleon. 

At once the prospect of being snared among 
armies and cut off from all return to Paris, appalled 
me as a greater present calamity than being cast 
out of Mittau. Mittau could wait for another expe- 
dition. 

“Very well,” I said. “Take the road to France.” 

We met August rains. We were bogged. A 
bridge broke under us. We dodged Austrian 
troops. It seemed even then a fated thing that a 
Frenchman should retreat ignominiously from 
Russia. 

There is a devilish antagonism of inanimate and 
senseless things, begun by discord in ourselves, 
which works unreasonable torture. Our return 
was an abominable journal which I will not recount, 
and going with it was a mortifying facility for draw- 
ing opposing forces. 

However, I knew my friend the marquis expected 
me to return defeated. He gave me my opportu- 
nity as a child is indulged with a dangerous play- 
thing, to teach it caution. 

He would be in his chateau of Plessy, cutting off 
two days’ posting to Paris. And after the first 
sharp pangs of chagrin and shame at losing the 


L ARRK 


245 

fortune he had placed in my hands, I looked for- 
ward with impatience to our meeting. 

‘‘We have nothing, Skenedonk!” I exclaimed the 
first time there was occasion for money on the road. 
“How have you been able to post? The money 
and the jewel-case are gone.” 

“We have two bags of money and the snuffbox,” 
said the Oneida. “I hid them in the post-carriage.” 

“But I had the key of the jewel-case.” 

“You are a good sleeper,” responded Skene- 
donk. 

I blessed him heartily for his forethought, and 
he said if he had known I was a fool he would not 
have told me we carried the jewel-case into Rus- 
sia. 

I dared not let myself think of Madame de Per- 
rier. The plan of buying back her estates, which 
I had nurtured in the bottom of my heart, was now 
more remote than America. 

One bag of coin was spent in Paris, but three 
remained there with Doctor Chantry. We had 
money, though the more valuable treasure stayed in 
Mittau. 

In the sloping hills and green vines of Cham- 
pagne we were no longer harassed dodging troops, 
and slept the last night of our posting at Epernay. 
Taking the road early next morning, I began to 
watch for Plessy too soon, without forecasting that 
I was not to set foot within its walls. 

We came within the marquis’ boundaries upon a 
little goose girl, knitting beside her flock. Her 


246 


Iv A Z A R R K 


bright hair was bound with a woolen cap. Delicious 
grass, and the shadow of an oak, under which she 
stood, were not to be resisted, so I sent the carriage 
on. She looked open-mouthed after Skenedonk, 
and bobbed her dutiful, frightened courtesy at me. 

The marquis’ peasants were by no means under 
the influence of the Empire, as I knew from observ- 
ing the lad whom he had sought among the 
drowned in the mortuary chapel of the Hotel Dieu, 
and who was afterwards found m a remote wine 
shop seeing sights. The goose girl dared not speak 
to me unless I required it of her, and the unusual 
notice was an honor she would have avoided. 

'‘What do you do here?” I inquired. 

Her little heart palpitated in the answer — "Oh, 
guard the geese.” 

"Do they give you trouble?” 

"Not much, except that wicked gander.” She 
pointed out with her knitting-needle a sleek white 
fellow, who flirted his tail and turned an eye, quav- 
ering as if he said — "La, la, la!” 

"What does he do?” 

"He would be at the vines and the corn, mon- 
sieur.” 

"Bad gander!” 

"I switch him/’ she informed me, like a magis- 
trate. 

"But that would only make him run.” 

"Also I have a string in my pocket, and I tie him 
by the leg to a tree.” 


AZ ARRK 


247 

'‘Serves him right. Is the Marquis du Plessy 
at the chateau?” 

Her face grew shaded, as a cloud chases sunlight 
before it across a meadow. "Do you mean the new 
marquis, the old marquis’ cousin, monsieur? He 
went away directly after the burial.” 

"What burial?” 

"The old marquis’ burial. That was before St. 
John’s day.” 

"Be careful what you say, my child!” 

"Didn’t you know he was dead, monsieur !” 

"I have been on a journey. Was his death sud- 
den?” 

"He was killed in a duel in Paris.” 

I sat down on the grass with my head in my 
hands. Bellenger had told the truth. 

One scant month the Marquis du Plessy fostered 
me like a son. To this hour my slow heart aches 
for the companionship of the lightest, most delicate 
spirit I ever encountered in man. 

Once I lifted my head and insisted, 

"It can’t be true!” 

"Monsieur,” the goose girl asserted solemnly, "it 
is true. The blessed St. Alpin, my patron, forget 
me if I tell you a lie.” 

Around the shadowed spot where I sat I heard 
trees whispering on the hills, and a cart rumbling 
along the hardened dust of the road. 

"Monsieur,” spoke the goose girl out of her good 
heart, "if you want to go to his chapel I will show 
you the path.” 


248 


ARRE 


She tied a string around the leg of the wicked 
gander and attached him to the tree, shaking a 
wand at him in warning. He nipped her sleeve, 
and hissed, and hopped, his wives remonstrating 
softly; but his guardian left him bound and carried 
her knitting down a valley to a stream, across the 
bridge, and near an opening in the bushes at the 
foot of a hill. 

“Go all to the right, monsieur,’’ she said, “and 
you will come to the chapel where the Du Plessys 
are buried.” 

I gave her the largest coin in my pocket, and she 
flew back as well as the spirit of childhood could fly 
in wooden shoes. All the geese, formed in a line, 
waddled to meet her, perhaps bearing a memorial 
of wrongs from their husband. 

The climb was steep, rounding a darkened ferny 
shoulder of lush forest, yet promising more and 
more a top of sunlight. At the summit was a car- 
riage road which ascended by some easier plane. 
Keeping all to the right as the goose girl directed, 
I found a chapel like a shrine. 

It was locked. Through the latticed door I could 
see an altar, whereunder the last Du Plessy who 
had come to rest there, doubtless lay with his 
kin. 

I sat down on one of the benches under the trees. 
The ache within me went deep. But all that sunny 
hillcrest seemed brightened by the marquis. It was 
cheerful as his smile. “Let us have a glass of wine 
and enjoy the sun,” he said in the breeze flowing 


1/ AZ A R R B 


249 

around his chapel. **And do you hear that little cit- 
izen of the tree trunks, Lazarre?” 

The perfume of the woods rose invisibly to a 
cloudless sky. My last tryst with my friend was 
an hour in paradise’s antechamber. 

The light quick stepping of horses and their rat- 
tling harness brought Madame de Perrier’s car- 
riage quickly around the curve fronting the chapel. 
Her presence was the one touch which the place 
lacked, and I forgot grief, shame, impatience at 
being found out in my trouble, and stood at her step 
with my hat in my hand. 

She said — Lazarre!” — and Paul beat on 
Ernestine’s knee, echoing — “O Zar!” and my com- 
fort was absolute as release from pain, because 
she had come to visit her old friend the marquis. 

I helped her down and stood with her at the lat- 
ticed door. 

*'How bright it is here!” said Eagle. 

“It is very bright. I came up the hill from a dark 
place.” 

“Did the news of his death meet you on the post- 
road?” 

“It met me at the foot of this hill. The goose girl 
told me.” 

“Oh, you have been hurt!” she said, looking at 
me. “Your face is all seamed. Don’t tell me about 
Mittau to-day. Paul and I are taking possession 
of the estates!” 

“Napoleon has given them back to you!” 

“Yes, he has! I begged the De Chaumonts to let 


250 


Iv AZ ARRK 


me come alone ! By hard posting we reached Mont- 
Louis last night. You are the only person in 
France to whom I would give that vacant seat in 
the carriage to-day.” 

I cared no longer for my own loss, as I am afraid 
has been too much my way all through life; or 
whether I was a prince or not. Like paradise after 
death, as so many of our best days come, this per- 
fect day was given me by the marquis himself. 
Eagle’s summer dress touched me. Paul and 
Ernestine sat facing us, and Paul ate cherries from 
a little basket, and had his fingers wiped, beating 
the cushion with his heels in excess of impatience 
to begin again. 

We paused at a turn of the height before de- 
scending, where fields could be seen stretching to 
the horizon, woods fair and clean as parks, without 
the wildness of the American forest, and vine- 
yards of bushy vines that bore the small black 
grapes. Eagle showed me the far boundaries of 
Paul’s estates. Then we drove where holly spread 
its prickly foliage near the ground, where springs 
from cliffs trickled across delicious lanes. 

Hoary stone farmhouses, built four-square like a 
fortress, each having a stately archway, saluted us 
as we passed by. The patron and his wife came out, 
and laborers, pulling their caps, dropped down 
from high-yoked horses. 

But when the long single street of stone cottages 
which formed the village opened its arms, I could 


Iv AZ ARRK 


251 

see her breast swelling and her gray eyes sweeping 
all with comprehensive rush. 

An elderly man, shaking some salad in a wire 
basket, dropped it at his feet, and bowed and bowed, 
sweeping his cap to the ground. Some women who 
were washing around a roofed pool left their pad- 
dles, and ran, wiping suds from their arms; and 
houses discharged their inmates, babies in chil- 
dren’s arms, wives, old men, the simplicity of their 
lives and the openness of their labor manifest. They 
surrounded the carriage. Eagle stood Paul upon 
his feet that they might worship him, and his mouth 
corners curled upward, his blue-eyed fearless look 
traveled from face to face, while her gloved hand 
was kissed, and God was praised that she had 
come back. 

O Jean!” she cried, “is your mother alive?” and 
“Marguerite! have you a son so tall?” 

An old creature bent double, walked out on four 
feet, two of them being sticks, lifted her voice, and 
blessed Eagle and the child a quarter of an hour. 
Paul’s mother listened reverently, and sent him in 
Ernestine’s arms for the warped human being to 
look upon at close range with her failing sight. He 
stared at her unafraid, and experimentally put his 
finger on her knotted cheek; at which all the wom- 
en broke into chorus as I have heard blackbirds 
rejoice. 

“I have not seen them for so long!” Madame de 
Ferrier said, wiping her eyes. “We have all for- 
gotten our behavior!” 


252 


Iv AZ ARRB 


An inverted pine tree hung over the inn door, 
and dinner was laid for us in its best room, where 
host and hostess served the marquise and the young 
marquis almost on their knees. 

When we passed out at the other end of the vil- 
lage, Eagle showed me a square-towered church. 

“The De Perrier s are buried there — excepting 
my father. I shall put a tablet in the wall for Cousin 
Philippe. Few Protestants in France had their 
rights and privileges protected as ours were by the 
throne. I mention this fact, sire, that you may lay 
it up in your mind! We have been good subjects, 
well worth our salt in time of war.’^ 

Best of all was coming to the chateau when the 
sun was about an hour high. The stone pillars of 
the gateway let us upon a terraced lawn, where a 
fountain played, keeping bent plumes of water in 
the air. The lofty chateau of white stone had a broad 
front, with wings. Eagle bade me note the two 
dove-cotes or pigeon towers, distinctly separate 
structures, one flanking each wing, and demonstrat- 
ing the antiquity of the house. For only nobles in 
medieval days were accorded the privilege of keep- 
ing doves. 

Should there be such another evening for me 
when I come to paradise, if God in His mercy 
brings me there, I shall be grateful, but hardly with 
such fresh-hearted joy. Night descends with special 
benediction on remote ancient homes like Mont- 
Louis. We walked until sunset in the park, by lake, 
and bridged stream, and hollied path; Ernestine 



We walked until sunset in the park, by lake, and 
bridged stream, and hollied path 





‘i • ^ ' 

|)'IT «. -’^'W^ndU- ^ 



• ii/V /JLiJLt"*-?'’ ^■- \ ^ vi;.t:'r.,-r .*..^ 

-.V « 


..... .'. .,. ir.> .,.( 
i*. 




Iv AZ ARRK 


253 


carrying Paul or letting him pat behind, driving her 
by her long cap ribbons while he explored his moth- 
er’s playground. But when the birds began to nest, 
and dewfall could be felt, he was taken to his sup- 
per and his bed, giving his mother a generous kiss, 
and me a smile of his upcurled mouth corners. His 
forehead was white and broad, and his blue eyes 
were set well apart. 

I can yet see the child looking over Ernestine’s 
shoulder. She carried him up stairs of oak worn 
hollow like stone, a mighty hand-wrought balus- 
trade rising with them from hall to roof. 

We had our supper in a paneled room where the 
lights v/ere reflected as on mirrors of polished oak, 
and the man who served us had served Madame de 
Perrier’s father and grandfather. The gentle old 
provincial went about his duty as a religious rite. 

There was a pleached walk like that in the mar- 
quis’ Paris garden, of branches flattened and plaited 
to form an arbor supported by tree columns ; which 
led to a summer-house of stone smothered in ivy. 
We walked back and forth under this thick roof of 
verdure. Eagle’s cap of brown hair was roughened 
over her radiant face, and the open throat of her 
gown showed pulses beating in her neck. Her lifted 
chin almost touched my arm as I told her all the 
Mittau story, at her request. 

“Poor Madame d’Angouleme! The cautious 
priest and the king should not have taken you from 
me like that! She knew you as I knew you; and 
a woman’s knowing is better than a man’s proofs. 


254 


Iv AZ ARRB 


She will have times of doubting their policy. She 
will remember the expression of your mouth, your 
shrugs, and gestures — the little traits of the child 
Louis, that reappear in the man.’’ 

wish I had never gone to Mittau to give her a 
moment’s distress.” 

“Is she very beautiful?” 

“She is like a lily made flesh. She has her strong 
dislikes, and one of them is Louis Philippe — ” 

“Naturally,” said Eagle. 

“But she seemed sacred to me. Perhaps a wom- 
an brings that hallowedness out of martyrdom.” 

“God be with the royal lady ! And you, sire !” 

“And you! — may you be always with me. Eagle!” 

“This journey to Mittau changes nothing. You 
were willful. You would go to the island in Lake 
George: you would go to Mittau.” 

“Both times you sent me.” 

“Both times I brought you home ! Let us not be 
sorrowful to-night.” 

“Sorrowful! I am so happy it seems impossible 
that I come from Mittau, and this day the Marquis 
du Plessy died to me! I wish the sun had been tied 
to the trees, as the goose girl tied her gander.” 

“But I want another day,” said Eagle. “I want 
all the days that are my due at home.” 

We ascended the steps of the stone pavilion, and 
sat down in an arch like a balcony over the sunken 
garden. Pears and apricots, their branches flat- 
tened against the wall, showed ruddy garnered sun- 
light through the dusk. The tangled inclosure 


Iv A Z A R R K 


255 


sloped down to the stream^ from which a fairy wisp 
of mist wavered over flower bed and tree. Dew 
and herbs and the fragrance of late roses sent up a 
divine breath, invisibly submerging us, like a tide 
rising out of the night. 

Madame de Ferrier’s individual traits were sur- 
prised in this nearness, as they never had been 
when I saw her at a distance in alien surroundings. 
A swift ripple, involuntary and glad, coursed down 
her body; she shuddered for joy half a minute 
or so. 

Two feet away, I worshiped her smiling eyes and 
their curved ivory lids, her rounded head with its 
abundant cap of hair, her chin, her shoulders, her 
bust, the hands in her lap, the very sweep of her 
scant gown about her feet. 

The flash of extreme happiness passing, she said 
gravely, 

'"But that was a strange thing — that you should 
fall unconscious!” 

^‘Not so strange,” I said; and told her how many 
times before the eclipse — under the edge of which 
my boyhood was passed — had completely shadowed 
me. At the account of Ste. Pelagic she leaned to- 
ward me, her hands clenched on her breast. When 
we came to the Hotel Dieu she leaned back pallid 
against the stone. 

‘'Dear Marquis du Plessy!” she whispered, as his 
name entered the story. 

When it was ended she drew some deep breaths 
in the silence. 


256 


Iv AZ AR RK 


‘‘Sire, you must be very careful. That Bellenger 
is an evil man.’’ 

“But a weak one.” 

“There may be a strength of court policy behind 
him.” 

“The policy of the court at Mittau is evidently 
a policy of denial.” 

“Your sister believed in you.” 

“Yes, she believed in me.” 

“I don’t understand,” said Madame de Ferrier, 
leaning forward on her arms, “why Bellenger had 
you in London, and another boy on the moun- 
tain.” 

“Perhaps we shall never understand it.” 

“I don’t understand why he makes it his business 
to follow you.” 

“Let us not trouble ourselves about Bellenger.” 

“But are you safe in France since the Marquis du 
Plessy’s death?” 

“I am safe to-night, at least.” 

“Yes, far safer than you would be in Paris.” 

“And Skenedonk is my guard.” 

“I have sent a messenger to Plessy for him,” Ma- 
dame de Ferrier said. “He will be here in the morn- 
ing.” 

I thanked her for remembering him in the excite- 
ment of her home coming. We heard a far sweet 
call through a cleft of the hills, and Eagle turned 
her head. 

“That must be the shepherd of Les Rochers. He 
has missed a lamb. Les Rochers is the most dis- 


Iv AZ ARRH 


257 


tant of our farms, but its night noises can be heard 
through an opening in the forest. Paul will soon 
be listening for all these sounds! We must drive 
to Les Rochers to-morrow. It was there that 
Cousin Philippe died.” 

I could not say how opportunely Cousin Philippe 
had died. The violation of her childhood by such 
a marriage rose up that instant a wordless tragedy. 

“Sire, we are not observing etiquette in Mont- 
Louis as they observe it at Mittau. I have been 
talking very familiarly to my king. I will keep 
silent. You speak.” ^ 

“Madame, you have forbidden me to speak!” 

She gave me a startled look, and said, 

“Did you know Jerome Bonaparte has come 
back? He left his wife in America. She cannot be 
received in France, because she has committed the 
crime of marrying a prince. She is to be divorced 
for political reasons.” 

“Jerome Bonaparte is a hound!” I spoke hotly. 

“And his wife a venturesome woman — to marry 
even a temporary prince.” 

“I like her sort, madame !” 

“Do you, sire ?” 

“Yes, I like a woman who can love!” 

“And ruin?” 

“How could you ruin me?” 

“The Saint-Michels brought me up,” said Eagle. 
“They taught me what is lawful and unlawful. I 
will never do an unlawful thing, to the disgrace and 


258 


I. AZ ARRK 


shame of my house. A woman should build her 
house, not tear it down.” 

“What is unlawful?” 

“It is unlawful for me to encourage the suit of 
my sovereign.” 

“Am I ever likely to be anything but what they 
call in Mittau a pretender^ Eagle?” 

“That we do not know. You shall keep yourself 
free from entanglements.” 

“I am free from them — God knows I am free 
enough! — ^the lonesomest most unfriended savage 
that ever set out to conquer his own.” 

“You were born to greatness. Great things will 
come to you.” 

“If you loved me I could make them come!” 

“Sire, it isn’t healthy to sit in the night air. We 
must go out of the dew.” 

“Oh, who would be healthy! Come to that, who 
would be such a royal beggar as I am?” 

“Remember,” she said gravely, “that your claim 
was in a manner recognized by one of the most 
cautious, one of the least ardent royalists, in 
France.” 

The recognition she knew nothing about came 
to my lips, and I told her the whole story of the 
jewels. The snuffbox was in my pocket. Sophie 
Saint-Michel had often described it to her. 

She sat and looked at me, contemplating the stu- 
pendous loss. 

“The marquis advised me not to take them into 
Russia,” I acknowledged. 


1/ AZ ARRB 


259 


'There is no robbery so terrible as the robbery 
committed by those who think they are doing 
right.” 

“I am one of the losing Bourbons.” 

"Can anything be hidden in that closet in the 
queen’s dressing-room wall?” mused Eagle. "I 
believe I could find it in the dark, Sophie told me 
so often where the secret spring may be touched. 
When the De Chaumonts took me to the Tuileries 
I wanted to search for it. But all the state apart- 
ments are now on the second floor, and Madame 
Bonaparte has her ov/n rooms below. Evidently 
she knows nothing of the secrets of the place. The 
queen kept her most beautiful robes in that closet. 
It has no visible door. The wall opens. And we 
have heard that a door was made through the back 
of it to let upon a spiral staircase of stone, and 
through this the royal family made their escape to 
Varennes, when they were arrested and brought 
back.” 

We fell into silence at mention of the unsuccess- 
ful flight which could have changed history; and 
she rose and said — "Good-night, sire.” 

Next morning there was such a delicious world 
to live in that breathing was a pleasure. Dew gauze 
spread far and wide over the radiant domain. 
Sounds from cattle, and stables, and the voices of 
servants drifted on the air. Doves wheeled around 
their towers, and around the chateau standing like 
a white cliff. 

I walked under the green canopy watching the 


26 o 


Iv AZ ARRK 


sun mount and waiting for Madame de Ferrier. 
When she did appear the old man who had served 
her father followed with a tray. I could only say — 
“Good-morning, madame,’^ not daring to add — “I 
have scarcely slept for thinking of you.” 

“We will have our coffee out here,” she told 
me. 

It was placed on the broad stone seat under the 
arch of the pavilion where we sat the night before; 
bread, unsalted butter from the farms, the coffee, 
the cream, the loaf sugar. Madame de Ferrier her- 
self opened a door in the end of the wall and 
plunged into the dew of the garden. Her old ser- 
vant exclaimed. She caught her hair in briers and 
laughed, tucking it up from falling, and brought 
off two great roses, each the head and the strength 
of a stem, to lay beside our plates. The breath of 
roses to this hour sends through my veins the joy 
of that. 

Then the old servant gathered wall fruit for us, 
and she sent some in his hand to Paul. Through 
a festooned arch of the pavilion giving upon the 
terraces, we saw a bird dart down to the fountain, 
tilt and drink, tilt and drink again, and flash away. 
Immediately the multitudinous rejoicing of a sky- 
lark dropped from upper air. When men would 
send thanks to the very gate of heaven their envoy 
should be a skylark. 

Eagle was like a little girl as she listened. 

“This is the first day of September, sire.” 


Iv AZ ARRK 


261 


‘Is it? I thought it was the first day of crea- 
tion.” 

‘1 mention the date that you may not forget it. 
Because I am going to give you something to-day.” 

My heart leaped like a conqueror’s. 

Her skin was as fresh as the roses, looking mar- 
velous to touch. The shock of imminent discovery 
went through me. For how can a man consider a 
woman forever as a picture? A picture she was, 
in the short-waisted gown of the Empire, of that 
white stuff Napoleon praised because it was manu- 
factured in France. It showed the line of her throat, 
being parted half way down the bosom by a ruff 
which encircled her neck and stood high behind it. 
The transparent sleeves clung to her arms, and the 
slight outline of her figure looked long in its close 
casing. 

The gown tail curled around her slippered foot 
damp from the plunge in the garden. She gave it 
a little kick, and rippled again suddenly throughout 
her length. 

Then her face went grave, like a child’s when it 
is surprised in wickedness. 

“But our fathers and mothers would have us for- 
get their suffering in the festival of coming home, 
wouldn’t they, Lazarre?” 

“Surely, Eagle.” 

“Then why are you looking at me with re- 
proach?” 

“I’m not.” 

“Perhaps you don’t like my dress?” 


262 


Iv ARRK 


I told her it was the first time I had ever noticed 
anything she wore, and I liked it. 

used to wear my mothers clothes. Ernestine 
and I made them over. But this is new; for the 
new day, and the new life here.’’ 

“And the day,” I reminded her, “is the first of 
September.” 

She laughed, and opened her left hand, showing 
me two squat keys so small that both had lain con- 
cealed under two of her finger tips. 

“I am going to give you a key, sire.” 

“Will it unlock a woman’s mind?” 

“It will open a padlocked book. Last night I 
found a little blank-leaved book, with wooden cov- 
ers. It was fastened by a padlock, and these keys 
were tied to it. You may have one key: I will keep 
the other.” 

“The key to a padlocked book with nothing in 
it.” 

Her eyes tantalized me. 

“I am going to put something in it. Sophie 
Saint-Michel said I had a gift for putting down my 
thoughts. If the gift appeared to Sophie when I 
was a child, it must grow in me by use. Every day 
I shall put some of my life into the book. And 
when I die I will bequeath it to you!” 

“Take back the key, madame. I have no desire 
to look into your coffin.” 

She extended her hand. 

“Then our good and kind friend Count de Chau- 
mont shall have it.” 


Iv A Z A R R H 


263 


“He shall not!” 

I held to her hand and kept my key. 

She slipped away from me. The laughter of the 
child yet rose through the dignity of the woman. 

“When may I read this book, Eagle?” 

“Never, of my free will, sire. How could I set 
down all I thought about you, for instance, if the 
certainty was hanging over me that you would read 
my candid opinions and punish me for them!” 

“Then of what use is the key?” 

“You would rather have it than give it to another, 
wouldn’t you?” 

“Decidedly.” 

“Well, you will have the key to my thoughts!” 

“And if the book ever falls into my hands — ” 

“I will see that it doesn’t!” 

“I will say, years from now — ” 

“Twenty?” 

“Twenty? O Eagle!” 

“Ten.” 

“Months? That’s too long!” 

“No, ten years, sire.” 

“Not ten years. Eagle. Say eight.” 

“No, nine.” 

“Seven. If the book falls into my hands at the 
end of seven years, may I open it?” 

“I may safely promise you that,” she laughed. 
“The book will never fall into your hands.” 

I took from my pocket the gold snuffbox with 
the portraits on the lid, and placed my key carefully 
therein. Eagle leaned forward to look at them. 


264 


Iv AZ ARRB 


She took the box in her hand, and gazed with long 
reverence, drooping her head. 

Young as I was, and unskilled in the ways of 
women, that key worked magic comfort. She had 
given me a link to hold us together. The inconsist- 
ent, contradictory being, old one instant with the 
wisdom of the Saint-Michels, rippling full of unre- 
strained life the next, denying me all hope, yet in- 
definitely tantalizing, was adorable beyond words. 
I closed my eyes: the blinding sunshine struck 
them through the ivied arch. 

Turning my head as I opened them, I saw an old 
man come out on the terrace. 

He tried to search in every direction, his gray 
head and faded eyes moving anxiously. Madame 
de Ferrier was still. I heard her lay the snuffbox 
on the stone seat. I knew, though I could not let 
myself watch her, that she stood up against the wall, 
a woman of stone, her lips chiseled apart. 

‘'Eagle — Eagle the old man cried from the ter- 
race. 

She whispered — “Yes, Cousin Philippe!” 


XI 


S WIFTLY as she passed between the tree col- 
umns, more swiftly her youth and vitality 
died in that walk of a few yards. 

We had been girl and boy together a brief half 
hour, heedless and gay. When she reached the 
arbor end, our chapter of youth was ended. 

I saw her bloodless face as she stepped upon the 
terrace. 

The man stretched his arms to her. As if the 
blight of her spirit fell upon him, the light died out 
of his face and he dropped his arms at his sides. 

He was a courtly gentleman, cadaverous and 
shabby as he stood, all the breeding of past genera- 
tions appearing in him. 

‘"Eagle?” he said. The tone of piteous apology 
went through me like a sword. 

She took his hands and herself drew them around 
her neck. He kissed her on both cheeks. 

“O Cousin Philippe!” 

‘T have frightened you, child! I meant to send 
a message first — but I wanted to see you — I wanted 
to come home!” 

“Cousin Philippe, who wrote that letter?” 

“The notary, child. I made him do it.” 

“It was cruel!” She gave way, and brokenly 
sobbed, leaning helpless against him. 

265 


266 


Iv AZ ARRK 


The old marquis smoothed her head^ and puck- 
ered his forehead under the sunlight, casting his 
eyes around like a culprit. 

^Tt was desperate. But I could do nothing else! 
You see it has- succeeded. While I lay in hiding, 
the sight of the child, and your youth, has softened 
Bonaparte. That was my intention. Eagle!” 

“The peasants should have told me you were 
living!” 

“They didn’t know I came back. Many of them 
think I died in America. The family at Les Roch- 
ers have been very faithful; and the notary has 
held his tongue. We must reward them. Eagle. 
I have been hidden very closely. I am tired of such 
long hiding!” 

He looked toward the chateau and lifted his voice 
sharply — 

“Where’s the baby? I haven’t seen the baby!” 

With gracious courtesy, restraining an impulse 
to plunge up the steps, he gave her his arm; and 
she swayed against it as they entered. 

When I could see them no more, I rose, and put 
my snuffbox in my breast. The key rattled in it. 

A savage need of hiding when so wounded, 
worked first through the disorder that let me see 
none of the amenities of leave-taking, self-com- 
mand, conduct. 

I was beyond the gates, bare-headed, walking 
with long strides, when an old mill caught my eye, 
and I turned towards it, as we turn to trifles to 
relieve us from unendurable tension. The water 


Iv A Z A R R K 


267 


dripped over the wheel, and long green beard 
trailed from its chin down the sluice. In this quiet- 
ing company Skenedonk spied me as he rattled 
past with the post-carriage; and considering my 
behavior at other times, he was not enough sur- 
prised to waste any good words of Oneida. 

He stopped the carriage and I got in. He pointed 
ahead toward a curtain of trees which screened the 
chateau. 

‘‘Paris,” I answered. 

“Paris,” he repeated to the postilion, and we 
turned about. I looked from hill to stream, from 
the fruited brambles of blackberry to reaches of 
noble forest, realizing that I should never see those 
lands again, or the neighboring crest where my 
friend the marquis slept. 

We posted the distance to Paris in two days. 

.What the country was like or what towns we 
passed I could not this hour declare with any cer- 
tainty. At first making effort and groping numbly 
in my mind, but the second day grasping determina- 
tion, I formed my plans, and talked them over with 
Skenedonk. We would sail for America on the first 
convenient ship; waiting in Paris only long enough 
to prepare for the post journey to a port. Charges 
must at once be settled with Doctor Chantry, who 
would willingly stay in Paris while the De Chau- 
monts remained there. 

Beyond the voyage I did not look. The first 
faint tugging of my foster country began to pull me 


268 


Iv AZ ARRB 


as it has pulled many a broken wretch out of the 
conditions of the older world. 

Paris was horrible, with a lonesomeness no one 
could have foreseen in its crowded streets. A taste 
of war was in the air. Troops passed to review. 
Our post-carriage met the dashing coaches of gay 
young men I knew, who stared at me without rec- 
ognition. Marquis du Plessy no longer made way 
for me and displayed me at his side. 

I drove to his hotel in the Faubourg Saint-Ger- 
main for my possessions. It was closed : the distant 
relative who inherited after him being an heir with 
no Parisian tastes. The care-taker, however, that 
gentle old valet like a woman, who had dressed me 
in my first Parisian finery, let us in, and waited 
upon us with food I sent him out to buy. He gave 
me a letter from my friend, which he had held to de- 
liver on my return, in case any accident befell the 
marquis. He was tremulous in his mourning, and 
all his ardent care of me was service rendered to the 
dead. 

I sat in the garden, with the letter spread upon 
the table where we had dined. Its brevity was gay. 
The writer would have gone under the knife with 
a jest. He did not burden me with any kind of 
counsel. We had touched. We might touch again. 
It was as if a soul sailed by, waving its hat. 

"‘My Dear Boy: — 

I wanted you, but it was best you should not 
stay and behold the depravity of your elders. It 
is about a woman. 


Iv A Z A R R 269 

May you come to a better throne than the un- 
steady one of France. 

Your friend and servant, 
Etienne du Plessy. 

Garlic is the spice of life, my boy!’’ 

I asked no questions about the affair in which 
he had been engaged. If he had wanted me to 
know he would have told me. 

The garden was more than I could endure. I lay 
down early and slept late, as soon as I awoke in the 
morning beginning preparation for leaving France. 
Yet two days passed, for we were obliged to ex- 
change our worn post-carriage for another after 
waiting for repairs. The old valet packed my be- 
longings; though I wondered what I was going to 
do with them in America. The outfit of a young 
man of fashion overdressed a refugee of diminished 
fortune. 

For no sooner was I on the street than a sense 
of being unmistakably watched grew upon me. I 
scarcely caught anybody in the act. A succession 
of vanishing people passed me from one to another. 
A working man in his blouse eyed me; and disap- 
peared. In the afternoon it was a soldier who 
turned up near my elbow, and in the evening he was 
succeeded by an equally interested old woman. I 
might not have remembered these people with dis- 
trust if Skenedonk had not told me he was trailed 
by changing figures, and he thought it was time to 
get behind trees. 


270 


Iv AZ ARRK 


Bellenger might have returned to Paris, and set 
Napoleon’s spies on the least befriended Bourbon of 
all; or the police upon a man escaped from Ste. 
Pelagie after choking a sacristan. 

The Indian and I were not skilled in disguises 
as our watchers were. Our safety lay in getting out 
of Paris. Skenedonk undertook to stow our be- 
longings in the post-chaise at the last minute. I 
went to De Chaumont’s hotel to bring the money 
from Doctor Chantry and to take leave without 
appearing to do so. 

Mademoiselle de Chaumont seized me as I en- 
tered. Her carriage stood in the court. Miss Chan- 
try was waiting in it while Annabel’s maid fastened 
her glove. 

“O Lazarre!” the poppet cried, her heartiness 
going through me like wine. ‘‘Are you back? And 
how you are changed! They must have abused you 
in Russia. We heard you went to Russia. But since 
dear Marquis du Plessy died we never hear the 
truth about anything.” 

I acknowledged that I had been to Russia. 

“Why did you go there? Tell your dearest Anna- 
bel. She won’t tell. 

“To see a lady.” 

Annabel shook her fretwork of misty hair. 

“That’s treason to me. Is she beautiful?” 

“Very.” 

“Kind?” 

“Perfectly.” 


IvAZ ARRH 


271 

‘‘Well, you’re not. By the way, why are you look 
ing so wan if she is beautiful and kind?” 

“I didn’t say she was beautiful and kind for me, 
did I?” 

“No, of course not. She has jilted you, the 
wretch. Your dearest Annabel will console you, 
Lazarre!” She clasped my arm with both hands. 
“Madame de Ferrier’s husband is alive!” 

“What consolation is there in that?” 

“A great deal for me. She has her estates back, 
and he was only hiding until she got them. I know 
the funniest thing!” 

Annabel hooked her finger and led me to a small 
study or cabinet at the end of the drawing-room. 

A profusion of the most beautiful stuffs was ar- 
ranged there for display. 

“Look!” the witch exclaimed, pinching my wrist 
in her rapture. “India muslin embroidered in silver 
lama, Turkish velvet, ball dresses for a bride, rib- 
bons of all colors, white blond, Brussel’s point, 
Cashmere shawls, veils in English point, reticules, 
gloves, fans, essences, a bridal purse of gold links — 
and worse than all, — except this string of perfect 
pearls — his portrait on a medallion of ivory, painted 
by Isabey!” 

“What is this collection?” 

“A corbeille!” 

“What’s a corbeille?” 

Annabel crossed her hands in desperation. “Oh, 
haven’t you been in Paris long enough to know 
what a corbeille is? It’s the collection of gifts a 


I, AZ ARRK 


272 

bridegroom makes for his bride. He puts his taste, 
his sentiment, his” — she waved her fingers in the 
air — ^^as well as his money, into it. A corbeille 
shows what a man is. He must have been collect- 
ing it ever since he came to France. I feel proud 
of him. I want to pat him on his dear old back!” 
Not having him there to pat she patted me. 

^^You are going to be married?” 

“Who said I was going to be married?” 

“Isn’t this your corbeille?” 

Annabel lifted herself to my ear. 

“It was Madame de Ferrier’s!” 

“What!” 

“I’m sure of it!” 

“Who bought it?” 

“Count de Chaumont, of course.” 

“Was Madame de Ferrier going to marry him?” 
“Who wouldn’t marry a man with such a cor- 
beille?” 

“Was she?” 

“Don’t grind your teeth at your dearest Annabel. 
She hadn’t seen it, but it must have decided her. 
I am sure he intended to marry Madame de Fer- 
rier, and he does most things he undertakes to do. 
That inconsiderate wretch of a Marquis de Ferrier 
— to spoil such a corbeille as this! But Lazarre!” 
She patted her gloved hands. “Here’s the consola- 
tion : — ^my father will be obliged to turn his corbeille 
into my trousseau when I am married!” 

“What’s a trousseau?” 

“Goose! It’s a bride’s wardrobe. I knew he had 


IvAZ A R RB 


273 


something in this cabinet, but he never left the key 
in the door until to-day. He was so completely 
upset when the De Ferriers came into Paris!” 

'‘Are they in Paris?” 

“Yes, at their own hotel. The old marquis has 
posted here to thank the emperor! The emperor is 
away with the troops, so he is determined at least 
to thank the empress at the assembly to-night.” 

“Will Madame de Ferrier go to the Tuileries?” 

“Assuredly. Fancy how furious my father must 
be!” 

“May I enter?” said the humblest of voices out- 
side the door. 

We heard a shuffling step. 

Annabel made a face and clenched her hands. 
The sprite was so harmless I laughed at her mis- 
chief. She brought in Doctor Chantry as she had 
brought me, to behold the corbeille; covering her 
father’s folly with transparent fabrications, which 
anybody but the literal Briton must have seen 
through. He scarcely greeted me at all, folding his 
hands pale and crushed, the sharp tip of his nose 
standing up more than ever like a porcelain candle- 
extinguisher, while I was anxious to have him aside, 
to get my money and take my leave. 

“See this beautiful corbeille. Doctor Chantry! 
Doesn’t it surprise you Lazarre should have such 
taste? We are going this morning to the mayor of 
the arrondissement. Nothing is so easy as civil 
marriage under the Empire! Of course the relig- 
ious sacrament in the church of the Capuchins 


Iv AZ AR RK 


274 

follows, and celebrating that five minutes before 
midnight, will make all Paris talk! Go with us to 
the mayor. Doctor Chantry!” 

“No,” he answered, “no!” 

“My father joins us there. We have kept Miss 
Chantry waiting too long. She will be tired of sit- 
ting in the carriage.” 

Chattering with every breath Annabel entrained 
us both to the court, my poor master hobbling after 
her a victim, and staring at me with hatred when 
I tried to get a word in undertone. 

I put Annabel into the coach, and Miss Chantry 
made frigid room for me. 

“Hasten yourself, Lazarre,” said Mademoiselle 
de Chaumont. 

I looked back at the poor man who was being 
played with, and she cried out laughing; — 

“Did you go to Russia a Parisian to come back a 
bear?” 

I entered her coach, intending to take my leave 
as soon as I had seen Count de Chaumont. Anna- 
bel chattered all the way about civil marriage, and 
directed Miss Chantry to wait for us while we went 
in to the mayor. I was perhaps too indifferent to 
the trick. The usually sharp governess, undecided 
and piqued, sat still. 

The count was not in the mayor’s office. A civil 
marriage was going forward, and a strange bridal 
party looked at us. 

“Now, Lazarre,” the strategist confided, “your 
dearest Annabel is going to cover herself with Pa- 


Iv AZ ARRK 


275 


risian disgrace. You don’t know how maddening 
it is to have every step dogged by a woman who 
never was, never could have been — and manifestly 
never will be — young! Wasn’t that a divine flash 
about the corbeille and the mayor? Miss Chantry 
will wait outside half a day. As I said, she will be 
very tired of sitting in the carriage. This is what 
you must do; smuggle me out another way; call 
another carriage, and take me for a drive and 
wicked dinner. I don’t care what the consequences 
are, if you don’t!” 

I said I certainly didn’t, and that I was ready to 
throw myself in the Seine if that would amuse her; 
and she commended my improvement in manners. 
We had a drive, with a sympathetic coachman; and 
a wicked dinner in a suburb, which would have been 
quite harmless on American ground. The child 
was as full of spirits as she had been the night she 
mounted the cabin chimney. But I realized that 
more of my gold pieces were slipping away, and I 
had not seen Doctor Chantry. 

‘‘We were going to the mayor’s,” she maintained, 
when reproached. ‘^My father would have joined 
us if he had been there. He would certainly have 
joined us if he had seen me alone with you. Noth- 
ing is so easy as civil marriage under the Empire. 
Of course the religious sacrament follows, when 
people want it, and if it is celebrated in the church 
of the Capuchins — or any other church — five min- 
utes before midnight, it will make all Paris talk! 
Every word I said was true!” 


276 


Iv AZ A.RRK 


^‘But Doctor Chantry believed something en- 
tirely different/' 

‘‘You can’t do anything for the English,” said 
Annabel. “Next week he will say haw-haw.” 

Doctor Chantry could not be found when we re- 
turned to her father’s hotel. She gave me her 
fingers to kiss in good-bye, and told me I was less 
doleful. 

“We thought you were the Marquis du Plessy’s 
son, Lazarre. I always have believed that story the 
Holland woman told in the cabin, about your rank 
being superior to mine. Don’t be cut up about 
Madame de Perrier! You may have to go to Rus- 
sia again for her, but you’ll get her!” 

The witch shook the mist of hair at the sides of 
her pretty aquiline face, blew a kiss at me, and ran 
up the staircase and out of my life. After waiting 
long for Doctor Chantry I hurried to Skenedonk 
and sent him with instructions to find my master 
and conclude our affair before coming back. 

The Indian silently entered the Du Plessy hotel 
after dusk, crestfallen and suspicious. He brought 
nothing but a letter, left in Doctor Chantry’s room; 
and no other trace remained of Doctor Chantry. 

“What has he done with himself, Skenedonk?” 
I exclaimed. 

The Oneida begged me to read that we might 
trail him. 

It was a long and very tiresome letter written in 
my master’s spider tracks, containing long and 
tiresome enumerations of his services. He pre- 


Iv AZ ARRH 


277 


sented a large bill for his guardianship on the voy- 
age and across France. He said I was not only 
a Rich Man through his Influence, but I had 
proved myself an ungrateful one, and had robbed 
him of his only Sentiment after a disappointed Ex- 
istence. My Impudence was equaled only by my 
astonishing Success, and he chose not to contem- 
plate me as the Husband of Beauty and Lofty Sta- 
tion, whose Shoes he in his Modesty and Worth, 
felt unworthy to unlatch. Therefore he withdrew 
that very day from Paris, and would embrace the 
Opportunity of going into pensive Retirement and 
rural Contemplation, in his native Kingdom; where 
his Sister would join him when she could do so with 
Dignity and Propriety. 

I glanced from line to line smiling, but the post- 
script brought me to my feet. 

“The Deposit which you left with me I shall 
carry with me, as no more than my Due for lifting 
low Savagery to high Gentility, and beg to sub- 
scribe my Thanks for at least this small Tribute of 
Gratitude.” 

“Doctor Chantry is gone with the money!” 

Skenedonk bounded up grasping the knife which 
he always carried in a sheath hanging from his 
belt. 

“Which way did the old woman go?” 

“Stop,” I said. 

The Indian half crouched for counsel. 

“Fll be a prince! Let him have it.” 

“Let him rob you?” 


278 


1^ AZ arre; 


'‘We're quits, now. I’ve paid him for the lancet 
stab I gave him.” 

“But you haven’t a whole bagful of coin left.” 

“We brought nothing into France, and it seems 
certain we shall take nothing but experience out of 
it. And I’m young, Skenedonk. He isn’t.” 

The Oneida grunted. He was angrier than I had 
ever seen him. 

“We ought to have knocked the old woman on 
the head at Saratoga,” he responded. 

Annabel’s trick had swept away my little fortune. 
With recklessness which repeated loss engenders 
I proposed we scatter the remaining coin in the 
street, but Skenedonk prudently said we would di- 
vide and conceal it in our clothes. I gave the kind 
valet a handful to keep his heart warm; and our 
anxieties about our valuables were much light- 
ened. 

Then we consulted about our imminent start, and 
I told my servant it would be better to send the 
post-chaise across the Seine. He agreed with me. 
And for me to come to it as if by accident the mo- 
ment we were ready to join each other on the road. 
He agreed to that. All of our belongings would 
be put into it by the valet and himself, and when 
we met we would make a circuit and go by the way 
of St. Denis. 

“We will meet,” I told him, “at eleven o’clock in 
front of the Tuileries.” 

Skenedonk looked at me without moving a 
muscle. 


Iv A Z A R R B 


279 

“I want to see the palace of the Tuileries before 
I leave France/' 

He still gazed at me. 

“At any risk, I am going to the Tuileries to- 
night!" 

My Iroquois grunted. A glow spread all over 
his copper face and head. If I had told him I was 
going to an enemy’s central camp fire to shake a 
club in the face of the biggest chief, he could not 
have thought more of my daring or less of my com- 
mon sense. 

“You will never come out/’ 

^Tf I don’t, Skenedonk, go without me.’’ 

He passed small heroics unnoticed. 

“Why do you do it?’’ 

I couldn’t tell him. Neither could I leave Paris 
without doing it. I assured him many carriages 
would be there, near the entrance, which was called, 
I believed, the pavilion of Flora; and by showing 
boldness we might start from that spot as well 
as from any other. He abetted the reckless devil in 
me, and the outcome was that I crossed the Seine 
bridge by myself about ten o’clock; remembering 
my escape from Ste. Pelagie; remembering I 
should never see the gargoyles on Notre Dame any 
more, or the golden dome of the Invalides, or hear 
the night hum of Paris, whether I succeeded or 
not. For if I succeeded I should be away toward 
the coast by morning; and if I did not succeed, I 
should be somewhere under arrest. 

I can see the boy in white court dress, with no 


280 


Iv AZ ARRB 


hint of the traveler about him, who stepped jauntily 
out of a carriage and added himself to groups en- 
tering the Tuileries. The white court dress was 
armor which he put on to serve him in the danger- 
ous attempt to look once more on a woman’s face. 
He mounted with a strut toward the guardians of 
the imperial court, not knowing how he might be 
challenged; and fortune was with him. 

“Lazarre!” exclaimed Count de Chaumont, hur- 
rying behind to take my elbow. ‘T want you to 
help me!” 

Remembering with sudden remorse Annabel’s 
escape and our wicked dinner, I halted eager to do 
him service. He was perhaps used to Annabel’s 
escapes, for a very different annoyance puckered 
his forehead as he drew me aside within the en- 
trance. 

“Have you heard the Marquis de Ferrier is 
alive?” 

I told him I had heard it. 

“Damned old fox! He lay in hiding until the es- 
tates were recovered. Then out he creeps to enjoy 
them!” 

I pressed the count’s hand. We were one in dis- 
approval. 

“It’s a shame!” said the count. 

It was a shame, I said. 

“And now he’s posted into Paris to make a fool 
of himself.” 

“How?” 

“Have you seen Madame de Ferrier?” 


Iv-A.2; ARRH 


281 


''No, I have not seen her/’ 

"I believe we are in time to intercept him. You 
have a clever head, boy. Use it. How shall we 
get this old fellow out of the Tuileries without let- 
ting him speak to the emperor?” 

"Easily, I should think, since Napoleon isn’t 
here.” 

"Yes, he is. He dashed into Paris a little while 
ago, and may leave to-night. But he is here.” 

"Why shouldn’t the Marquis de Perrier speak to 
Napoleon?” 

"Because he is going to make an ass of himself 
before the court, and what’s worse, he’ll make a 
laughing-stock of me.” 

"How can he do that?” 

"He is determined to thank the emperor for 
restoring his estates. He might thank the empress, 
and she wouldn’t know what he was talking about. 
But the emperor knows everything. I have used 
all the arguments I dared to use against it, but he 
is a pig for stubbornness. For my sake, for 
Madame de Perrier’s sake, Lazarre, help me to get 
him harmlessly out of the Tuileries, without mak- 
ing a public scandal about the restitution of the 
land!” 

"What scandal can there be, monsieur? And 
why shouldn’t he thank Napoleon for giving him 
back his estates after the fortunes of revolution and 
war?” 

"Because the emperor didn’t do it. I bought 
them!” 


282 


Iv AZ ARRK 


“You!’^ 

'‘Yes, I bought them. Come to that, they are my 
property!” 

“Madame de Ferrier doesn’t know this?” 

“Certainly not. I meant to settle them on her. 
Saints and angels, boy, anybody could see what my 
intentions were!” 

“Then she is as poor as she was in America?” 

“Poorer. She has the Marquis de Ferrier!” 

We two who loved her, youth and man, rich and 
powerful, or poor and fugitive, felt the passionate 
need of protecting her. 

“She wouldn’t accept them if she knew it.” 

“Neither would the marquis,” said De Chau- 
mont. “The Marquis de Ferrier might live on the 
estates his lifetime without any interference. But 
if he will see the emperor, and I can’t prevent it 
any other way, I will have to tell him!” 

“Yes, you will have to tell him!” 

I thought of Eagle in the village, and the old 
woman who blessed her a quarter of an hour, and 
Paul standing on the seat to be worshiped. How 
could I go to America and leave her? And what 
could I do for her when a rich man like De Chau- 
mont was powerless? 

“Can’t you see Napoleon,” I suggested, “and 
ask him to give the marquis a moment’s private 
audience, and accept his thanks?” 

“No!” groaned De Chaumont. “He wouldn’t do 
it. I couldn’t put myself in such a position!” 


Iv A Z A R R B 283 

'If Napoleon came in so hurriedly he may not 
show himself in the state apartments to-night/’ 

“But he is accessible, wherever he is. He doesn’t 
deny himself to the meanest soldier. Why should 
he refuse to see a noble of the class he is always 
conciliating when he can?” 

“Introduce me to the Marquis de Ferrier,” I 
finally said, “and let me see if I can talk against 
time while you get your emperor out of his 
way.” 

I thought desperately of revealing to the old roy- 
alist what I believed myself to be, what Eagle and 
he believed me to be, and commanding him, as his 
rightful prince, to content himself with less effusive 
and less public gratitude to an usurper. He would 
live in the country, shrinking so naturally from the 
court that a self-imposed appearance there need 
never be repeated. 

I believe this would have succeeded. A half 
hour more of time might have saved years of com- 
fort to Eagle — for De Chaumont was generous — 
and have changed the outcome of my own life. 
But in scant fifteen minutes our fate was decided. 

De Chaumont and I had moved with our heads 
together, from corridor to antechamber, from ante- 
chamber to curtained salon of the lower floor. The 
private apartments of the Bonaparte family were 
thrown open, and in the mahogany furnished room, 
all hung with yellow satin, I noticed a Swiss clock 
which pointed its minute finger to a quarter before 
eleven. I made no hurry. My errand was not 


284 


AZ arre: 


accomplished. Skenedonk would wait for me, and 
even dare a search if he became suspicious. 

Th'e count, knowing, what Madame de Ferrier 
considered me, perhaps knew my plan. He turned 
back at once assenting. 

The Marquis and Marquise de Ferrier were that 
instant going up the grand staircase, and would be 
announced. Eagle turned her face above me, the 
long line of her throat uplifted, and went coura- 
geous and smiling on her way. The marquis had 
adapted himself to the court requirements of the 
Empire. Noble gentleman of another period, he 
stalked a piteous masquerader where he had once 
been at home. 

Count de Chaumont grasped my arm and we 
hurried up the stairs after them. The end of a 
'great and deep room was visible, and I had a 
glimpse, between heads and shoulders, of a woman 
standing in the light of many lusters. She parted her 
lips to smile, closing them quickly, but having 
shown little dark teeth. She was of exquisite shape, 
her face and arms and bosom having a clean fair 
polish like the delicate whiteness of a magnolia, as I 
have since seen that flower in bloom. She wore a 
small diadem in her hair, and her short-waisted 
robe trailed far back among her ladies. I knew 
without being told that this was the empress of the 
French. 

De Chaumont’s hand was on my arm, but 
another hand touched my shoulder. I looked be- 
hind me. This time it was not an old woman, or a 


Iv A Z A R R K 


285 


laborer in a blouse, or a soldier; but I knew my 
pursuer in his white court dress. Officer of the law, 
writ in the lines of his face, to my eyes appeared 
all over him. 

“Monsieur Veeleeum!” 

As soon as he said that I understood it was the 
refugee from Ste. Pelagie that he wanted. 

“Certainly,” I answered. “Don’t make a dis- 
turbance.” 

“You will take my arm and come with me. Mon- 
sieur Veeleeum.” 

“I will do nothing of the kind until my errand 
is finished,” I answered desperately. 

De Chaumont looked sharply at the man, but his 
own salvation required him to lay hold on the mar- 
quis. As he did so. Eagle’s face and my face en- 
countered in a panel of mirror, two flashes of pal- 
lor; and I took my last look. 

“You will come with me now,” said the gendarme 
at my ear. 

She saw him, and understood his errand. 

There was no chance. De Chaumont wheeled 
ready to introduce me to the' marquis. I was not 
permitted to speak to him. But Eagle took my 
right arm and moved down the corridor with me. 

Decently and at once the disguised gendarme fell 
behind where he could watch every muscle without 
alarming Madame de Ferrier. She appeared not 
to see him. I have no doubt he praised himself for 
his delicacy and her unconsciousness of my ar- 
rest. 


286 


Iv AR RB 


^‘You must not think you can run away from 
me/’ she said. 

“I was coming back,” I answered, making 
talk. 

My captor’s person heaved behind me, signifying 
that he silently laughed. He kept within touch. 

“Do you know the Tuileries well?” inquired 
Eagle. 

“No. I have never been in the palace before.” 

“Nor I.” 

We turned from the corridor into a suite in 
these upper rooms, the gendarme humoring 
Madame de Ferrier, and making himself one in the 
crowd around us. De Chaumont and the Marquis 
de Ferrier gave chase. I saw them following, as 
well as they could. 

“This used to be the queen’s dressing-room,” 
said Eagle. We entered the last one in the suite. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Quite sure.” 

“This is the room you told me you would like to 
examine?” 

“The very one. I don’t believe the Empire has 
made any changes in it. These painted figures look 
just as Sophie described them.” 

Eagle traced lightly with her finger one of the 
shepherdesses dancing on the panel; and crossed- 
to the opposite side of the room. People who passed 
the door found nothing to interest them, and turned 
away, but the gendarme stayed beside us. Eagle 
glanced at him as if resenting his intrusion, and 


Iv AZ ARRB 


287 


asked me to bring her a candle and hold it near a 
mark on the tracery. The gendarme himself, apol- 
ogetic but firm, stepped to the sconce and took the 
candle. I do not know how the thing was done, or 
why the old spring and long unused hinges did not 
stick, but his back was toward us — she pushed me 
against the panel and it let me in. 

And I held her and drew her after me, and the 
thing closed. The wall had swallowed us. 

We stood on firm footing as if suspended in eter- 
nity. No sound from the swarming palace, not 
even possible noise made by the gendarme, reached 
us. It was like being earless, until she spoke in the 
hollow. 

‘'Here’s the door on the staircase, but it will not 
open!” 

I groped over every inch of it with swift haste 
in the blackness. 

"Hurry — hurry!” she breathed. "He may touch 
the spring himself — it moves instantly!” 

"Does this open with a spring, too?”- 

"I don’t know. Sophie didn’t know!” 

"Are you sure there is any door here?” 

"She told me there was.” 

"This is like a door, but it will not move.” 

It sprang inward against us, a rush of air and a 
hollow murmur as of wind along the river, follow- 
ing it. 

"Go — be quick!” said Madame de Ferrier. 

"But how will you get out?” 

‘T shall get out when you are gone.”- 


288 


Iv AZ ARRB 


*‘0, Eagle, forgive me!” (Yet I would have 
dragged her in with me again !) 

‘'1 am in no danger. You are in danger. Good- 
bye, my liege.” 

Cautiously she pushed me through the door, beg- 
ging me to feel for every step. I stood upon the 
top one, and held to her as I had held to her in 
passing through the other wall. 

I thought of the heavy days before her and the 
blank before me. I could not let go her wrists. 
We were fools to waste our youth. I could work 
for her in America. My vitals were being torn from 
me. I should go to the devil without her. I don’t 
know what I said. But I knew the brute love which 
had risen like a lion in me would never conquer 
the woman who kissed me in the darkness and held 
me at bay. 

“O Louis — O Lazarre! Think of Paul and Cousin 
Philippe! You shall be your best for your little 
mother! I will come to you sometime!” 

Then she held the door between us, and I went 
down around and around the spiral of stone. 


BOOK III 



ARRIVING 




I 


E ven when a year had passed I said of my 
escape from the Tuileries: ‘‘It was a dream. 
How could it have happened?” For the adven- 
tures of my wandering fell from me like a garment, 
leaving the one changeless passion. 

Skenedonk and I met on the ship a New England 
minister, who looked upon and considered us from 
day to day. I used to sit in the stern, the miles 
stretching me as a rack stretches flesh and tendons. 
The minister regarded me as prostrated by the 
spider bite of that wicked Paris; out of which he 
learned I had come, by talking to my Oneida. 

The Indian and I were a queer pair that inter- 
ested him, and when he discovered that I bore the 
name of Eleazar Williams his friendship was sealed 
to us. Eunice Williams of Deerfield, the grand- 
mother of Thomas Williams, was a traditional 
brand never snatched from the burning, in the min- 
ister’s town of Longmeadow, where nearly every 
inhabitant was descended from or espoused to a 
Williams. Though he himself was born Storrs, 
his wife was born Williams ; and I could have lain 
at his feet and cried, so open was the heart of this 
good man to a wanderer rebounding from a family 
that disowned the pretender. He was my welcome 
back to America. The breath of eastern pines, 
and the resinous sweetness of western plains I had 
291 


292 


Iv AZ ARRB 


not yet seen, but which drew me so that I could 
scarcely wait to land, came to me with that man. 
Before the voyage ended I had told him my whole 
history as far as I knew it, except the story of 
Madame de Ferrier; and the beginning of it was 
by no means new to him. The New England Wil- 
liamses kept a prayerful eye on that branch de- 
scending through the Iroquois. This transplanted 
Briton, returning from his one memorable visit to 
the England of his forefathers, despised my Bour- 
bon claims, and even the French contraction of 
my name. 

“What are you going to do now, Eleazar?” he in- 
quired. 

Hugging my old dream to myself, feeling my 
heart leap toward that western empire which must 
fascinate a young man as long as there remain any 
western lands to possess, I told him I intended to 
educate our Iroquois as soon as I could prepare 
myself to do it, and settle them where they could 
grow into a greater nation. 

The man of God kindled in the face. He was a 
dark-eyed, square-browed, serious man, with black 
hair falling below his white band. His mouth had a 
sweet benign expression, even when he quizzed me 
about my dauphinhood. A New England pastor 
was a flame that burned for the enlightenment of 
the nations. From that hour it was settled that I 
should be his pupil, and go with him to Long- 
meadow to finish my education. 

When we landed he helped me to sell my Baby- 


Iv A Z A R R K 


293 


lonish clothes, except the white court dress, to 
which I clung with tenacity displeasing to him, and 
garb myself in more befitting raiment. By Skene- 
donk’s hand I sent some of the remaining gold 
coins to my mother Marianne and the chief, when 
he rejoined the tribe and went to pass the winter 
at St. Regis. And by no means did I forget to tell 
him to bring me letters from De Chaumont’s 
manor in the spring, if any arrived there for me. 

How near to heaven the New England village 
seemed, with Mount Tom on the horizon glorious 
as Mount Zion, the mighty sweep of meadow land, 
the Connecticut river flowing in great peace, the 
broad street of elms like some gigantic cathedral 
nave, and in its very midst a shrine — the meeting- 
house, double-decked with fan-topped windows. 

Religion and education were the mainsprings of 
its life. Pastor Storrs worked in his study nearly 
nine hours a day, and spent the remaining hours 
in what he called visitation of his flock. 

This being lifted out of Paris and plunged into 
Longmeadow was the pouring of white hot metal 
into chill moulds. It cast me. With a seething and 
a roar of loosened forces, the boy passed to the man. 

Nearly every night during all those years of 
changing, for even faithfulness has its tides, I put 
the snuffbox under my pillow, and Madame de 
Perrier’s key spoke to my ear. I would say to my- 
self: “The one I love gave me this key. Did I 
ever sit beside her on a ledge of stone overlooking 
a sunken garden? — so near that I might have 


294 


Iv ARRB 


touched her! Does she ever think of the dauphin 
Louis? Where is she? Does she know that La- 
zarre has become Eleazar Williams?” 

The pastor’s house was fronted with huge white 
fluted pillars of wood, upholding a porch roof which 
shaded the second floor windows. The doors in 
that house had a short-waisted effect with little pan- 
els above and long panels below. I had a chamber 
so clean and small that I called it in my mind the 
Monk’s Cell, nearly filled with the high posted bed, 
the austere table and chairs. The whitewashed 
walls were bare of pictures, except a painted por- 
trait of Stephen Williams, pastor of Longmeadow 
from 1718 to 1783. Daily his laughing eyes watched 
me as if he found my pretensions a great joke. He 
had a long nose, and a high forehead. His black 
hair crinkled, and a merry crease drew its half circle 
from one cheek around under his chin to the other. 

Longmeadow did not receive me without much 
question and debate. There were Williamses in 
every direction; disguised, perhaps, for that gen- 
eration, under the names of Cooley, Stebbins, Col- 
ter, Ely, Hole, and so on. A stately Sarah Wil- 
liams, as Mrs. Storrs, sat at the head of the pastor’s 
table. Her disapproval was a force, though it never 
manifested itself except in withdrawal. If Mrs. 
Storrs had drawn back from me while I lived under 
her roof, I should have felt an outcast indeed. The 
subtle refinement of those Longmeadow women 
was like the hinted sweetness of arbutus flower. 
Breeding passed from generation to generation. 


LAZ ARRE 


29s 


They had not mixed their blood with the blood of 
any outsiders; and their forbears were English 
yeomen. 

I threw myself into books as I had done during 
my first months at De Chaumonfs, before I grew 
to think of Madame de Ferrier. One of those seven 
years I spent at Dartmouth. But the greater part 
of my knowledge I owe to Pastor Storrs. Greek 
and Hebrew he gave me to add to the languages I 
was beginning to own; and he unlocked all his 
accumulations of learning. It was a monk^s life 
that I lived ; austere and without incident, but brac- 
ing as the air of the hills. The whole system was 
monastic, though abomination alighted on that 
word in Longmeadow. I took the discipline into 
my blood. It will go down to those after me. 

There a man had to walk with God whether he 
wanted to or not. 

Living was inexpensive, each item being gauged 
by careful housekeeping. It was a sin to gorge 
the body, and godly conversation was better than 
abundance. Yet the pastor’s tea-table arises with 
a halo around it. The rye and Indian bread, the 
doughnuts fragrant as flowers, the sparing tea, the 
prim mats which saved the cloth, the wire screen 
covering sponge cake — how sacred they seem ! 

The autumn that I came to Longmeadow, Napo- 
leon Bonaparte was beaten on the sea by the Eng- 
lish, but won the battle of Austerlitz, defeating the 
Russian coalition and changing the map of Europe. 

I felt sometimes a puppet while this man played 


296 


Iv AZ ARRB 


his great part. It was no comfort that others of 
my house were nothing to France. Though I didi 
not see Louis Philippe again, he wandered in 
America two or three years, and went back to pri- 
vacy. 

During my early novitiate at Longmeadow, 
Aaron Burr’s conspiracy went to pieces, dragging 
down with it that pleasant gentleman, Harmon 
Blennerhassett, startling men like Jackson, who 
had best befriended him unawares. But this in 
nowise affected my own plans of empire. The 
solidarity of a nation of Indians on a remote tract 
could be no menace to the general government. 

Skenedonk came and went, and I made journeys 
to my people with him. But there was never any 
letter waiting at De Chaumont’s for me. After 
some years indeed, the count having returned to 
Castorland, to occupy his new manor at Le Ray- 
ville, the mansion I had known was torn down and 
the stone converted to other uses. Skenedonk 
brought me word early that Mademoiselle de Chau- 
mont had been married to an officer of the Empire, 
and would remain in France. 

The door between my past and me was sealed. 
Madame de Ferrier stood on the other side of it, 
and no news from her penetrated its dense barrier. 
I tried to write letters to her. But nothing that 
I could write was fit to send, and I knew not wheth- 
er she was yet at Mont-Louis. Forever she was 
holding the door against me. 

Skenedonk, coming and going at his caprice, 


Iv ARRH 


297 


stayed a month in every year at Longmeadow, 
where the townspeople, having had a surfeit of abo- 
riginal names, called him John. He raised no 
objection, for that with half a dozen other Christian 
titles had been bestowed on him in baptism; and 
he entered the godly list of Williamses as John 
Williams. 

The first summer I spent in Longmeadow there 
was an eclipse of the sun about the middle of June. 
I remember lying on open land, my book on its 
face beside me, and watching it through my eye- 
lashes; until the weird and awful twilight of a 
blotted sun in mid-heaven sent birds and beasts to 
shelter as from wrath. When there was but a hairy 
shining around the orbed blackness, and stars 
trembled out and trembled back, as if they said: 
^‘We are here. The old order will return,’’ and 
the earth held its breath at threat of eternal dark- 
ness, the one I loved seemed to approach in the 
long shadows. It was a sign that out of the worst 
comes the best. But it was a terror to the unpre- 
pared; and Pastor Stbrrs preached about it the 
following Sunday. 

The missionary spirit of Longmeadow stirred 
among the Williamses, and many of them brought 
what they called their mites to Pastor Storrs for 
my education. If I were made a king no revenue 
could be half so sweet as that. The village was 
richer than many a stonier New England place, but 
men were struggling then all over the wide states 
and territories for material existence, 


298 


Iv AZ ARRH 


The pension no longer came from Europe. It 
ceased when I returned from France. Its former 
payment was considered apocryphal by Long- 
meadow, whose very maids — too white, with a pink 
spot in each cheek — smiled with reserved amuse- 
ment at a student who thought it possible he could 
ever be a king. I spoke to nobody but Pastor 
Storrs about my own convictions. But local news- 
papers, with their omniscient grip on what is in the 
air, bandied the subject back and forth. 

We sometimes walked in the burying ground 
among dead Williamses, while he argued down 
my claims, leaving them without a leg to stand on. 
Reversing the usual ministerial formula, ^Tf what 
has been said is true, then it follows, first, sec- 
ondly,” and so on, he used to say: 

‘‘Eleazar, you were brought up among the In- 
dians, conscious only of bodily existence, and un- 
conscious of your origin; granted. Money was 
sent — let us say from Europe — for your support; 
granted. Several persons, among them one who 
testified strongly against his will, told you that you 
resembled the Bourbons; granted. You bear on 
your person marks like those which were inflicted 
on the unfortunate dauphin of France; granted. 
You were malignantly pursued while abroad; 
granted. But what does it all prove? Nothing. It 
amounts simply to this: you know nothing about 
your early years; some foreign person — perhaps 
an English Williams — kindly interested himself in 
your upbringing; you were probably scalded in 


Iv AZ ARRK 


299 


the camps; you have some accidental traits of the 
Bourbons; a man who heard you had a larger 
pension than the idiot he was tending, disliked you. 
You can prove nothing more.” 

I never attempted to prove anything more to Pas- 
tor Storrs. It would have been most ungrateful to 
persuade him I was an alien. At the same time he 
prophesied his hopes of me, and many a judicious 
person blamed him for treating me as something 
out of the ordinary, and cockering up pride. 

A blunter Williams used to take me by the but- 
ton on the street. 

'‘Eleazar Williams,” he would say, ^‘do you pre- 
tend to be the son of the French king? I tell you 
what! I will not let the name of Williams be dis- 
graced by any relationship to any French mon- 
arch! You must do one of two things: you must 
either renounce Williamsism or renounce Bourbon- 
ism !” 

Though there was liberty of conscience to criti- 
cise the pastor, he was autocrat of Longmeadow. 
One who preceded Pastor Storrs had it told about 
him that two of his deacons wanted him to appoint 
Ruling Elders. He appointed them; and asked 
them what they thought the duties were. They 
said he knew best. 

“Well,” said the pastor, “one of the Ruling El- 
ders may come to my house before meeting, saddle 
my horse, and hold the stirrup while I get on. The 
other may wait at the church door and hold him 
while I get off, and after meeting bring him to the 


300 


Iv AZ ARRK 


steps. This is all of my work that I can consent to 
let Ruling Elders do for me,” 

The Longmeadow love of disputation was fos- 
tered by bouts which Ruling Elders might have 
made it their business to preserve, if any Ruling 
Elders were willing to accept their appointment. 
The pastor once went to the next town to enjoy 
argument with a scientific doctor. When he 
mounted his horse to ride home before nightfall 
the two friends kept up their debate. The doctor 
stood by the horse, or walked a few steps as the 
horse moved. Presently both men noticed a fire 
in the east; and it was sunrise. They had argued 
all night. 

In Longmeadow a man could not help practicing 
argument. I also practiced oratory. And all the 
time I practiced the Iroquois tongue as well as 
English and French, and began the translation of 
books into the language of the nation I hoped to 
build. That Indians made unstable material for 
the white man to handle I would not believe. Sken- 
edonk was not unstable. His faithfulness was a 
rock. 

For some reason, and I think it was the reach of 
Pastor Storrs, men in other places began to seek 
me. The vital currents of life indeed sped through 
us on the Hartford and Springfield stage road. It 
happened that Skenedonk and I were making my 
annual journey to St. Regis when the first steam- 
boat accomplished its trip on the Hudson river. 
About the time that the Wisconsin country was in- 


A Z A R R K 


301 


eluded in Illinois Territory, I decided to write a 
letter to Madame Tank at Green Bay, and insist on 
knowing my story as she believed she knew it. Yet 
I hesitated; and finally did not do it. I found 
afterwards that there was no post-office at Green 
Bay. A carrier, sent by the officers of the fort and 
villagers, brought mail from Chicago. He had two 
hundred miles of wilderness to traverse, and his 
blankets and provisions as well as the mail to carry; 
and he did this at the risk of his life among wild 
men and beasts. 

The form of religion was always a trivial matter 
to me. I never ceased to love the sacrifice of the 
mass, which was an abomination and an idolatrous 
practice to Pastor Storrs. The pageantry of the 
Roman Church that first mothered and nurtured 
me touches me to this day. I love the Protestant 
prayers of the English Church. And I love the 
stern and knotty argument, the sermon with heads 
and sequences, of the New England Congregation- 
alist. For this catholicity Catholics have upbraided 
me, churchmen rebuked me, and dissenters denied 
that I had any religion at all. 

When the Episcopal Bishop of New York 
showed me kindness, and Pastor Storrs warned me 
against being proselyted, I could not tell him the 
charm in the form of worship practiced by the 
woman I loved. There was not a conscious minute 
when I forgot her. Yet nobody in Longmeadow 
knew of her existence. In my most remorseful 
days, comparing myself with Pastor Storrs, I was 


302 


Iv AZ ARRB 


never sorry I had clung to her and begged her 
not to let me go alone. For some of our sins are 
so honestly the expression of nature that justifi- 
cation breaks through them. 

On the western border there was trouble with 
dissatisfied Indians, and on the sea there was 
trouble with the British, so that people began to 
talk of war long before it was declared, and to 
blame President Madison for his over-caution in 
affairs. A battle was fought at Tippecanoe in the 
Indiana Territory, which silenced the Indians for a 
while. But every one knew that the English stood 
behind them. Militia was mustered, the army re- 
cruited, and embargo laid upon shipping in the 
ports, and all things were put forward in April of 
that year, before war was declared in June. 

I had influence with our tribes. The Govern- 
ment offered me a well paid commission to act as 
its secret agent. Pastor Storrs and the Williamses, 
who had been nurturing a missionary, were smitten 
with grief to see him rise and leap into camps and 
fields, eager for the open world, the wilderness 
smell; the council, where the red man’s mind, a 
trembling balance, could be turned by vivid lan- 
guage; eager, in fact, to live where history was 
being made. 

The pastor had clothed me in his mind with min- 
isterial gown and band, and the martial blood that 
quickened he counted an Iroquois strain. Yet so 
inconsistent is human nature, so given to forms 
which it calls creeds, that when I afterwards put 


Iv AZ ARRE) 


303 


on the surplice and read prayers to my adopted 
people, he counted it as great a defection as taking 
to saddle and spur. We cannot leave the expression 
of our lives to those better qualified than we are, 
however dear they may be. I had to pack my 
saddlebags and be gone, loving Longmeadow none 
the less because I grieved it, knowing that it would- 
not approve of me more if I stayed and failed to do 
my natural part. 

The snuffbox and the missal which had belonged 
to my family in France I always carried with me. 
And very little could be transported on the road 
we took. 

John Williams, who came to Longmeadow in 
deerskins, and paraded his burnished red poll 
among the hatted Williamses, abetted me in turn- 
ing from the missionary field to the arena of war, 
and never left me. It was Skenedonk who served 
the United States with brawn and endurance, while 
I put such policy and color into my harangues as I 
could command. We shared our meals, our camps, 
our beds of leaves together. The life at Long- 
meadow had knit me to good use. I could fast or 
feast, ride or march, take the buckskins, or the 
soldier's uniform. 

Of this service I shall write down only what goes 
to the making of the story. The Government was 
pleased to commend it, and it may be found written 
in other annals than mine. 

Great latitude was permitted us in our orders. 
We spent a year in the north. My skin darkened 


304 


Iv A Z A. R R B 


and toughened under exposure until I said to Sken- 
edonk, ''I am turning an Indian;” and he, jealous 
of my French blood, denied it. 

In July we had to thread trails he knew by the 
lake toward Sandusky. There was no horse path 
wide enough for us to ride abreast. Brush swished 
along our legs, and green walls shut our view on 
each side. The land dipped towards its basin. 
Buckeye and gigantic chestnut trees, maple and 
oak, passed us from rank to rank of endless forest. 
Skenedonk rode ahead, watching for every sign 
and change, as a pilot now watches the shifting of 
the current. So we had done all day, and so we 
were doing when fading light warned us to camp. 

A voice literally cried out of the wilderness, start- 
ling the horses and ringing among the tree trunks : 

“The spirit of the Lord is upon me, and He hath 
anointed me to blow the trumpet in the wilderness, 
and sound an alarm in the forest; for behold the 
tribes of the heathen are round about your doors, 
and a devouring flame followeth after them!” 


II 


I ^ HAT’S Johnny Appleseed,” said Skene- 
J|_ donk, turning in his saddle. 

^‘What is Johnny Appleseed?” 

“He is a man that God has touched,” said Skene- 
donk, using the aboriginal phrase that signified a 
man clouded in mind. 

God had hidden him, too. I could see no one. 
The voice echo still went off among the trees. 

“Where is he?” 

“Maybe one side, maybe the other.” 

“Does he never show himself?” 

“Oh, yes,” Skenedonk said. “He goes to all the 
settlements. I have often seen him when I was 
hunting on these grounds. He came to our camp. 
He loves to sleep outdoors better than in a cabin.” 

“Why does he shout at us like a prophet?” 

“To warn us that Indians are on the warpath.” 

“He might have thought we were on the warpath 
ourselves.” 

“Johnny Appleseed knows Shawanoes and Te- 
cumseh’s men.” 

The trees, lichened on their north sides^ massed 
rank behind rank without betraying any face in 
their glooms. The Ohio and Indiana forests had 
a nameless quality. They might have been called 
home-forests, such invitations issued from them to 

305 


3o6 


Iv AZ ARRB 


man seeking a spot of his own. Nor can I make 
clear what this invitation was. It produced thoughts 
different from those that men were conscious of in 
the rugged northwest. 

“I think myself,” said Skenedonk, as we moved 
farther from the invisible voice, “that he is under a 
vow. But nobody told me that.” 

“Why do you think so?” 

“He plants orchards in every fine open spot; 
or clears the land for planting where he thinks the 
soil is right.” 

“Don’t other men plant orchards?” 

“No. They have not time, or seed. They plant 
bread. He does nothing but plant orchards.” 

“He must have a great many.” 

“They are not for himself. The apples are for 
any one who may pass by when they are ripe. He 
wants to give apples to everybody. Animals often 
nibble the bark, or break down his young trees. It 
takes long for them to grow. But he keeps on 
planting.” 

“If other men have no seeds to plant, how does 
he get them?” 

“He makes journeys to the old settlements, 
where many orchards have grown, and brings the 
seeds from ciderpresses. He carries them from 
Pennsylvania on his back, in leather bags, a bag 
for each kind of seed.” 

“Doesn’t he ever sell them?” 

“Not often. Johnny Appleseed cares nothing for 
money. I believe he is under a vow of poverty. 


Iv AZ ARRK 


307 


No one laughs at him. The tribes on these grounds 
would not hurt a hair of his head, not only because 
God has touched him, but because he plants apples. 
I have eaten his apples myself.” 

Johnny Appleseed!” I repeated, and Skenedonk 
hastened to tell me: 

'‘He has another name, but I forget it. He is 
called Johnny Appleseed.” 

The slim and scarcely perceptible tunnel, among 
trees, piled with fallen logs and newly sprung 
growths, let us into a wide clearing as suddenly as 
a stream finds its lake. We could not see even the 
usual cow tracks. A cabin shedding light from its 
hearth surprised us in the midst of stumps. 

The door stood wide. A woman walked back 
and forth over a puncheon floor, tending supper. 
Dogs rushed to meet us, and the playing of children 
could be heard. A man, gun in hand, stepped to his 
door, a sentinel. He lowered its muzzle, and made 
us welcome, and helped us put our horses under 
shelter with his own. 

It was not often we had a woman’s handiwork 
in corn bread and game to feed ourselves upon, or 
a bed covered with homespun sheets. 

I slept as the children slept, until a voice rang in 
the clearing: 

"The spirit of the Lord is upon me, and He hath 
anointed me to blow the trumpet in the wilderness, 
and sound an alarm in the forest; for behold the 
tribes of the heathen are round about your doors, 
and a devouring flame followeth after them!” 


Iv AZ ARRK 


308 

Every sleeper in the cabin sat upright or stirred. 
We said in whispered chorus: 

“Johnny Appleseed!” 

A tapping, light and regular, on the window, fol- 
lowed. The man was on the floor in a breath. I 
heard the mother groping among the children, and 
whispering: 

“Don’t wake the baby!” 

The fire had died upon the hearth, and they 
lighted no candle. When Johnny Appleseed gave 
his warning cry in the clearing, and his cautious 
tap on the window, and was instantly gone to other 
clearings and other windows, it meant that the In- 
dians were near. 

Skenedonk and I, used to the night alarm and 
boots and saddle in a hurry, put ourselves in readi- 
ness to help the family. I groped for clothing, and 
shoved small legs and arms into it. The little 
creatures, obedient and silent, made no whimper at 
being roused out of dreams, but keenly lent them- 
selves to the march. 

We brought the horses, and put the woman and 
children upon them. The very dogs understood, 
and slunk around our legs without giving mouth. 
The cabin door was shut after us without noise, 
closing in what that family called home; a few 
pots and pans; patchwork quilts; a spinning- 
wheel; some benches; perhaps a child’s store of 
acorn cups and broken yellow ware in a log cor- 
ner. In a few hours it might be smoking a heap of 
ashes; and the world offered no other place so 


Iv AZ ARRK 


309 

dear. What we suffer for is enriched by our suf- 
fering until it becomes priceless. 

So far on the frontier was this cabin that no 
community block-house stood near enough to give 
its inmates shelter. They were obliged to go with 
us to Fort Stephenson. 

Skenedonk pioneered the all-night struggle on an 
obscure trail; and he went astray sometimes, 
through blackness of woods that roofed out the 
stars. We floundered in swales sponging full of 
dead leaves, and drew back, scratching ourselves on 
low-hung foliage. 

By dawn the way became easier and the danger 
greater. Then we paused and lifted our rifles if 
a twig broke near by, or a fox barked, or wind 
rushed among leaves as a patter of moccasins might 
■come. Skenedonk and I, sure of the northern In- 
dians, were making a venture in the west. We knew 
nothing of Tecumseh’s swift red warriors, except 
that scarcely a year had passed since his allies had 
tomahawked women and children of the garrison 
on the sand beach at Chicago. 

Without kindling any fire we stopped once that 
day to eat, and by good luck and following the 
river, reached that Lower Sandusky which was 
called Fort Stephenson, about nightfall. 

The place was merely a high stockade with block- 
houses at the angles, and a gate opening toward 
the river. Within, besides the garrison of a hun- 
dred and sixty men, were various refugees, driven 
like our family to the fort. And there, coming 


310 


L/ AZ ARRK 


heartily from the commandant’s quarters to receive 
me, was George Croghan, still a boy in appearance, 
though intrusted with this dangerous post. His 
long face had darkened like mine. We looked 
each other over with the quick and critical scrutiny 
of men who have not met since boyhood, and 
laughed as we grasped hands. 

“You are as welcome to the inside of this bear- 
pen,” said Major Croghan, “as you made me to the 
outside of the one in the wilderness.” 

“I hope you’ll not give me such another tramp 
after shelter for the night as I gave you,” I said. 

“The best in Fort Stephenson is yours. But 
your rest depends on the enemy. A runner has 
just come in from the General warning me Proctor 
and Tecumseh are turning their attention this way. 
I’m ordered to evacuate, for the post is considered 
too weak to hold.” 

“How soon do you march?” 

“I don’t march at all. I stay here. I’m going to 
disobey orders.” 

“If you’re going to disobey orders, you have 
good reason for doing so.” 

“I have. It was too late to retreat. I’m going 
to fight. I hear, Lazarre, you know how to handle 
Indians in the French way.” 

“My dear Croghan, you insinuate the American 
way may be better.’' 

“It is, on the western border. It may not be on 
the northern.” 


Iv AZ ARRB 


311 

“Then you would not have advised my attempt- 
ing the Indians here?’’ 

“I shouldn’t have discouraged it. When I got 
the secret order, I said: 'Bring the French — bring 
the missionaries — bring anything that will cut the 
comb of Tecumseh!’” 

“The missionaries and the French like being 
classed with — anything,” I said. 

“We’re Americans here,” Croghan laughed. “The 
dauphin may have to fight in the ditch with the rest 
of us.” 

“The dauphin is an American too, and used to 
scars, as you know. Can you give me any news 
from Green Bay in the Wisconsin country?” 

“I was ordered to Green Bay last year to see if 
anything could be done with old Fort Edward Au- 
gustus.” 

“Does my Holland court-lady live there?” 

“Not now,” he answered soberly. “She’s dead.” 

“That’s bad,” I said, thinking of lost opportuni- 
ties. 

“Is pretty Annabel de Chaumont ever coming 
back from France?” 

“Not now, she’s married.” 

“That’s worse,” he sighed. “I was very silly 
about her when I was a boy.” 

We had our supper in his quarters, and he busied 
himself until late in the night with preparations for 
defense. The whole place was full of cheer and 
plenty of game, and swarmed like a little fair with 
moving figures. A camp-fire was built at dark in 


312 


Iv AZ ARRB 


the center of the parade ground, heaped logs send- 
ing their glow as far as the dark pickets. Heads of 
families drew towards it while the women were 
putting their children to bed; and soldiers off duty 
lounged there, the front of the body in light, the 
back in darkness. 

Cool forest night air flowed over the stockade, 
swaying smoke this way and that. As the fire was 
stirred, and smoke turned to flame, it showed more 
and more distinctly what dimness had screened. 

A man rose up on the other side of it, clothed 
in a coffee sack, in which holes were cut for his 
head and arms. His hat was a tin kettle with the 
handle sticking out behind like a stiff queue. 

Indifferent to his grotesqueness, he took it off 
and put it on the ground beside him, standing ready 
to command attention. 

He was a small, dark, wiry man, barefooted and 
barelegged, whose black eyes sparkled, and whose 
scanty hair and beard hung down over shoulders 
and breast. Some pokes of leather, much scratched, 
hung bulging from the rope which girded his coffee 
sack. From one of these he took a few unbound 
leaves, the fragment of a book, spread them open, 
and began to read in a chanting, prophetic key, 
something about the love of the Lord and the mys- 
teries of angels. His listeners kept their eyes on 
him, giving an indulgent ear to spiritual messages 
that made less demand on them than the violent 
earthly ones to which they were accustomed. 

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Iv A.Z ARRE^ 


313 


me, as if the name explained anything he might do. 

When Johnny Appleseed finished reading the 
leaves he put them back in his bag, and took his 
kettle to the well for water. He then brought 
some meal from the cook-house and made mush in 
his hat. 

The others, turning their minds from future 
mysteries, began to talk about present danger, 
when he stood up from his labor to inquire : 

“Is there plenty in the fort for the children to 
eat?’^ 

“Plenty, Johnny, plenty,” several voices assured 
him. 

“I can go without supper if the children haven’t 
enough.” 

“Eat your supper, Johnny. Major Croghan will 
give you more if you want it,” said a soldier. 

“And we’ll give you jerked Britisher, if you’ll 
wait for it,” said another. 

“Johnny never eats meat,” one of the refugees 
put in. “He thinks it’s sinful to kill critters. All 
the things in the woods likes him. Once he got 
into a holler log to sleep, and some squirrels 
warned him to move out, they settled there first; 
and he done it. I don’t allow he’d pick a flea off 
his own hide for fear he’d break its legs so it 
couldn’t hop around and make a living.” 

The wilderness prophet sat down quietly to his 
meal without appearing to notice what was said 
about him ; and when he had eaten, carried his hat 


314 


Iv AZ ARRB 


into the cook-house, where dogs could not get at 
his remaining porridge. 

^‘Now he’ll save that for his breakfast,” remarked 
another refugee. “There’s nothing he hates like 
waste.” 

“Talking about squirrels,” exclaimed the man at 
my side, “I believe he has a pasture for old, broke- 
down horses somewhere east in the hills. All the 
bates he can find he swaps young trees for, and 
they go off with him leading them, but he never 
comes into the settlements on horseback.” 

“Does he always go barefoot?” I asked. 

“Sometimes he makes bark sandals. If you give 
him a pair of shoes he’ll give them away to the first 
person that can wear them and needs them. Hunt- 
ers wrap dried leaves around their leggins to keep 
the rattlesnakes out, but Johnny never protects him- 
self at all.” 

“No wonder,” spoke a soldier. . “Any snake’d 
be discouraged at them shanks. A seven-year 
rattler’d break his fang on ’em.” 

Johnny came out of the cook-house with an iron 
poker, and heated it in the coals. All the men 
around the fire waited, understanding what he was 
about to do, but my own breath drew with a hiss 
through my teeth as he laid the red hot iron first 
on one long cut and then another in his travel-worn 
feet, Having cauterized himself effectually, and 
returned the poker, he took his place in perfect 
serenity, without any show of pain, prepared to 
accommodate himself to the company. 


Iv AZ ARRK 


315 


Some boys, awake with the bigness of the occa- 
sion, sat down near Johnny Appleseed, and gave 
him their frank attention. Each boy had his hair 
cut straight around below the ears, where his 
mother had measured it with an inverted bowl, 
and freshly trimmed him for life in the fort, and 
perhaps for the discomfiture of savages, if he came 
under the scalping knife. Open-mouthed or stern- 
jawed, according to temperament, the young pio- 
neers listened to stories about Tecumseh, and sur- 
mises on the enemy’s march, and the likelihood of 
a night attack. 

“Tippecanoe was fought at four o’clock in the 
morning,” said a soldier. 

“I was there,” spoke out Johnny Appleseed. 

No other man could say as much. All looked at 
him as he stood on his cauterized feet, stretching 
his arms, lean and sun-cured, upward in the fire- 
light. 

“Angels were there. In rain and darkness I 
heard them speak and say, ^He hath cast the lot for 
them, and His hand hath divided it unto them by 
line; they shall possess it forever; from generation 
to generation shall they dwell therein. The wilder- 
ness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, 
and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the 
rose!’ ” 

“Say, Johnny, what does an angel look like?” 
piped up one of the boys, quite in fellowship. 

Johnny Appleseed turned his rapt vision aside 
and answered: 


3i6 


Iv AZ ARRK 


‘White robes were given unto every one of 
them/ There had I laid me down in peace to sleep, 
and the Lord made me to dwell in safety. The 
camp-fires burned red in the sheltered place, and 
they who were to possess the land watched by the 
campfires. I looked down from my high place, 
from my shelter of leaves and my log that the Lord 
gave me for a bed, and saw the red camp-fires blink 
in the darkness. 

“Then was I aware that the heathen crept be- 
twixt me and the camp, surrounding it as a cloud 
that lies upon the ground. The rain fell upon us 
all, and there was not so much sound as the rust- 
ling of grasshoppers in tall grass. I said they will 
surprise the camp and slay the sleepers, not know- 
ing that they who were to possess the land watched 
every man with his weapon. But when I would 
have sounded the trumpet of warning, I heard a 
rifle shot, and all the Indians rose up screeching 
and rushed at the red fires. 

“Then a sorcerer leaped upon my high place, rat- 
tling many deer hoofs, and calling aloud that his 
brethren might hear his voice. Light he promised 
them for themselves, and darkness for the camp, 
and he sang his war song, shouting and rattling 
the deer hoofs. Also the Indians rattled deer hoofs, 
and it was like a giant breathing his last, being shot 
with many musket flashes. 

“I saw steam through the darkness, for the fires 
were drenched and trampled by the men of the 
camp, and no longer shone as candles so that the 


Iv AZ ARRK 


317 


Indians might see by them to shoot. The sorcerer 
danced and shouted, the deer hoofs rattled, and 
on this side and that men fought knee to knee and 
breast to breast. I saw through the wet dawn, and 
they who had crept around the camp as a cloud 
arose as grasshoppers and fled to the swamp. 

^‘Then did the sorcerer sit upon his heels, and I 
beheld he had but one eye, and he covered it from 
the light. 

“But the men in the camp shouted with a mighty 
shouting. And after their shouting I heard again 
the voices of angels saying: 'He hath cast the lot 
for them, and His hand hath divided it unto them 
by line; they shall possess it forever; from gen- 
eration to generation shall they dwell therein. The 
wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for 
them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as 
the rose!’ ” 

The speaker sat down, and one of the men re- 
marked : 

“So that’s the way the battle of Tippecanoe 
looked to Johnny Appleseed.” 

But the smallest boy thoughtfully inquired : 

'‘Say, Johnny, haven’t the Indians any angels?” 

“You’ll wish they was with the angels if they 
ever get you by the hair,” laughed one of the men. 

Soldiers began moving their single cannon, a 
six-pounder, from one blockhouse to another. All 
the men jumped up to help, as at the raising of a 
home, and put themselves in the way so ardently 
that they had to be ordered back. 


318 


LAZ A.RRE 


When everybody but ourselves had left the starlit 
open place, Johnny Appleseed lay down and 
stretched his heels to the blaze. A soldier added 
another log, and kicked into the flame those fallen 
away. Though it was the end of July, Lake Erie 
cooled the inland forests. 

Sentinels were posted in the blockhouses. Quiet 
settled on the camp ; and I sat turning many things 
in my mind besides the impending battle. Napoleon 
Bonaparte had made a disastrous campaign in Rus- 
sia. If I were yet in France; if the Marquis du 
Plessy had lived; if I had not gone to Mittau; if 
the self I might have been, that always haunts us, 
stood ready to take advantage of the turn 

Yet the thing which cannot be understood by 
men reared under old governments had befallen me. 
I must have drawn the wilderness into my blood. 
Its possibilities held me. If I had stayed in France 
at twenty, I should have been a Frenchman. The 
following years made me an American. The pas- 
sion that binds you to a land is no more to be ex- 
plained than the fact that many women are beauti- 
ful, while only one is vitally interesting. 

The wilderness mystic was sitting up looking 
at me. 

“I see two people in you,’’ he said. 

‘^Only two?” 

“Two separate men.” 

“What are their names?” 

“Their names I cannot see.” 

“Well, suppose we call them Louis and Lazarre.” 


Iv AZ ARRB 


319 


His eyes sparkled. 

“You are a white man,” he pronounced. “By 
that I mean you are not stained with many vile 
sins.” 

“I hadn’t an equal chance with other men. I 
lost nine years.” 

“Mebby,” hazarded Johnny Appleseed cautious- 
ly? are the one appointed to open and read 
what is sealed.” 

“If you mean to interpret what you read, I’m 
afraid I am not the one. Where did you get those 
leaves?” 

“From a book that I divided up to distribute 
among the people.” 

“Doesn’t that destroy the sense?” 

“No. I carry the pages in their order from cabin 
to cabin.” 

He came around the fire with the lightness of an 
Indian, and gave me his own fragment to examine. 
It proved to be from the writings of one Emanuel 
Swendenborg. 

With a smile which seemed to lessen the size of 
his face and concentrate its expression to a shining 
point, Johnny Appleseed slid his leather bags along 
the rope girdle, and searched them, one after the 
other. I thought he wanted me to notice his apple 
seeds, and inquired how many kinds he carried. So 
he showed them in handfuls, brown and glistening, 
or gummed with the sweet blood of cider. These 
produced pippins; these produced russets; these 
produced luscious harvest apples, that fell in Au- 


320 


Iv ARRK 


gust bursting with juicy ripeness. Then he showed 
me another bagful which were not apple seeds at 
all, but neutral colored specks moving with fluid 
swiftness as he poured them from palm to palm. 

‘'Do you know what this is?’’ 

I told him I didn’t. 

“It’s dogfennel seed.” 

I laughed, and asked him what kind of apples it 
bore. 

Johnny Appleseed smiled at me again. 

“It’s a flower. I’m spreading it over the whole 
of Ohio and Indiana! It’ll come up like the stars 
for abundance, and fill the land with rankness, and 
fever and ague will flee away 1” 

“But how about the rankness?” 

“Fever and ague will flee away,” he repeated, 
continuing his search through the bags. 

He next brought out a parcel, wrapped up care- 
fully in doeskin to protect it from the appleseeds; 
and turned foolish in the face, as bits of ribbon and 
calico fell out upon his knees. 

“This isn’t the one,” he said, bundling it up and 
thrusting it back again. “The little girls, they like 
to dress their doll-babies, so I carry patches for 
the little girls. Here’s what I was looking for.” 

It was another doeskin parcel, bound lengthwise 
and crosswise by thongs. These Johnny Appleseed 
reverently loosened, bringing forth a small book 
with wooden covers fastened by a padlock. 


Ill 


44T T 7 HERE did you get this?’^ I heard 
V V myself asking, a strange voice sound- 
ing far down the throat. 

“From an Indian/’ the mystic told me quietly. 
“He said it was bad medicine to him. He never 
had any luck in hunting after it fell to his share, 
so he was glad to give it to me.” 

“Where did he get it?” 

“His tribe took it from some prisoners they 
killed.” 

I was running blindly around in a circle to 
find relief from the news he dealt me, when the 
absurdity of such news overtook me. I stood and 
laughed. 

“Who were the prisoners?” 

“I don’t know,” answered Johnny Appleseed. 

“How do you know the Indians killed them?” 

“The one that gave me this book told me so.” 

“There are plenty of padlocked books in the 
world,” I said jauntily. “At least there must be 
more than one. How long ago did it happen?” 

“Not very long ago, I think; for the book was 
clean.” 

“Give it to me,” I said, as if I cursed him. 

“It’s a sacred book,” he answered, hesitating. 

“Maybe it’s sacred. Let me see.” 

321 


322 


Iv AZ ARRK 


'There may be holy mysteries in it, to be read 
only of him who has the key.’* 

"I have a key!” 

I took it out of the snuffbox. Johnny Apple- 
seed fixed his rapt eyes on the little object in my 
fingers. 

“Mebby you are the one appointed to open and 
read what is sealed!” 

"No, I’m not! How could my key fit a pad- 
locked book that belonged to prisoners killed by 
the Indians?” 

He held it out to me and I took hold of the pad- 
lock. It was a small steel padlock, and the hole 
looked dangerously the size of my key. 

T can’t do it!” I said. 

"Let me try,” said Johnny Appleseed. 

"No! You might break my key in a strange pad- 
lock! Hold it still, Johnny. Please don’t shake 
it.” 

"I’m not shaking it,” Johnny Appleseed an- 
swered tenderly. 

"There’s only one way of proving that my key 
doesn’t fit,” I said, and thrust it in. The ward 
turned easily, and the padlock came away in my 
hand. I dropped it and opened the book. Within 
the lid a name was written which I had copied a 
thousand times — "Eagle Madeleine Marie de Per- 
rier.” 

Still I did not believe it. Nature protects us in 
our uttermost losses by a density through which 
conviction is slow to penetrate. In some mysterious 


Iv A 2: A R R H 


323 

way the padlocked book had fallen into strange 
hands, and had been carried to America. 

“If Eagle were in America, I should know it. For 
De Chaumont would know it, and Skenedonk 
would find it out.” 

I stooped for the padlock, hooked it in place, and 
locked the book again. 

“Is the message to you alone?” inquired Johnny 
Appleseed. 

“Did you ever care for a woman?” I asked him. 

Restless misery came into his eyes, and I noticed 
for the first time that he was not an old man; he 
could not have been above thirty-five. He made 
no answer; shifting from one bare foot to the other, 
his body settling and losing its Indian lightness. 

“A woman gave me the key to this book. Her 
name is written inside the lid. I was to read it if 
it ever fell into my hands, after a number of years. 
Somebody has stolen it, and carried it among the 
Indians. But it’s mine. Every shilling in my wal- 
let, the clothes off my back you’re welcome to — ” 

“I don’t want your money or your clothes.” 

“But let me give you something in exchange for 
it.” 

“What do I need? I always have as much as I 
want. This is a serviceable coat, as good as any 
man need wish for; and the ravens feed me. And 
if I needed anything, could I take it for carrying a 
message? I carry good tidings of great joy among 
the people all the time. This is yours. Put it in 
your pocket.” 


324 


Iv AZ ARRK 


I hid the padlocked book in the breast of my coat, 
and seized his wrist and his hand. 

“Be of good courage, white double-man,” said 
Johnny Appleseed. “The Lord lift up the light of 
His countenance upon you, the Lord make His 
face to shine upon you and give you peace!” 

He returned to his side of the fire and stretched 
himself under the stars, and I went to Croghan’s 
quarters and lay down with my clothes on in the 
bunk assigned to me. 

The book which I would have rent open at twen- 
ty, I now carried unsealed. The suspense of it was 
so sweet, and drew my thoughts from the other sus- 
pense which could not be endured. It was not likely 
that any person about Mont-Louis had stolen the 
book, and wandered so far. Small as the volume 
was, the boards indented my breast and made me 
increasingly conscious of its presence. I waked in 
the night and held it. 

Next morning Johnny Appleseed was gone from 
the fort, unafraid of war, bent only on carrying the 
apple of civilization into the wilderness. Nobody 
spoke about his absence, for shells began to fall 
around us. The British and Indians were in sight; 
and General Proctor sent a flag of truce demanding 
surrender. 

Major Croghan’s ensign approached the messen- 
ger with a flag in reply. 

The women gathered their children as chickens 
under shelter. All in the fort were cheerful, and 
the men joked with the gush of humor which dan- 


Iv AZ ARRK 


325 


ger starts in Americans. I saw then the ready laugh 
that faced in its season what was called Indian sum- 
mer, because the Indian took then advantage of the 
last pleasant weather to make raids. Such pioneers 
could speak lightly even of powwowing time — the 
first pleasant February days, when savages held 
councils before descending on the settlements. 

Major Croghan and I watched the parley from 
one of the blockhouses that bastioned the place. 
Before it ended a Shawanoe sprang out of a ravine 
and snatched the ensign’s sword. He gave it back 
reluctantly, and the British flag bearer hurried the 
American within the gates. 

General Proctor regretted that so fine a young 
man as Major Croghan should fall into the hands 
of savages, who were not to be restrained. 

“When this fort is taken,” said Croghan on hear- 
ing the message, “there will be nobody left in it 
to kill.” 

British gunboats drawn up on the Sandusky 
river, and a howitzer on the shore, opened fire, 
and cannonaded all day with the poor execution of 
long range artillery. The northwestern angle of 
the fort was their target. Croghan foresaw that 
the enemy’s intention was to make a breach and 
enter there. When night came again, his one six- 
pounder was moved with much labor from that 
angle into the southwest blockhouse, as noiselessly 
as pwDssible. He masked the embrasure and had the 
piece loaded with a double charge of slugs and 
grape shot and half a charge of powder. Perhaps 


326 


Iv AZ AR RK 


the British thought him unprovided with any heavy 
artillery. 

They were busy themselves, bringing three of the 
ineffectual six-pounders and the howitzer, under 
darkness, within two hundred and fifty yards of the 
fort; giving a background of woods to their bat- 
tery. About dawn we saw what they had been 
doing. They concentrated on the northwest angle; 
and still Croghan replied only with muskets, wait- 
ing for them to storm. 

So it went on all day, the gun-proof blockhouse 
enduring its bombardment, and smoke thickening 
until it filled the stockade as water fills a well, and 
settled like fog between us and the enemy. An 
attack was made on the southern angle where the 
cannon was masked. 

‘This is nothing but a feint,” Croghan said to the 
younger officers. 

While that corner replied with musketry, he kept 
a sharp lookout for the safety of the northwest 
blockhouse. 

One soldier was brought down the ladder and 
carried through the murky pall to the surgeon, 
who could do nothing for him. Another turned 
from a loophole with blood upon him, laughing at 
his mishap. For the grotesqueness and inconven- 
ience of a wound are sometimes more swiftly felt 
than its pain. He came back presently with his 
shoulder bandaged and resumed his place at the 
loophole. 

The exhilaration of that powder atmosphere and 


ly AZ ARRB 


327 


its heat made soldiers throw off their coats, as if the 
expanding human body was not to be confined in 
wrappings. 

In such twilight of war the twilight of Nature 
overtook us. Another feint was made to draw at- 
tention from a heavy force of assailants creeping 
within twenty paces, under cover of smoke, to sur- 
prise the northwest blockhouse. 

Musketry was directed against them: they hesi- 
tated. The commander led a charge, and himself 
sprang first into the ditch. We saw the fine fellows 
leaping to carry the blockhouse, every man deter- 
mined to be first in making a breach. They filled 
the ditch. 

This was the instant for which Croghan had 
waited. He opened the porthole and unmasked 
his exactly trained cannon. It enfiladed the assail- 
ants, sweeping them at a distance of thirty feet; 
slugs and grapeshot hissed, spreading fan rays of 
death! By the flash of the re-loaded six-pounder, 
we saw the trench filled with dead and wounded. 

The besiegers turned. 

Croghan’s sweating gunners swabbed and loaded 
and fired, roaring like lions. 

The Indians, of whom there were nearly a thou- 
sand, were not in the charge, and when retreat be- 
gan they went in panic. We could hear calls and 
yells, the clatter of arms, and a thumping of the 
earth; the strain of men tugging cannon ropes; the 
swift withdrawal of a routed force. 


328 


IvAZ ARRE 


Two thousand more Indians approaching under 
Tecumseh, were turned back by refugees. 

Croghan remarked, as we listened to the uproar. 
‘Tort Stephenson can hardly be called untenable 
against heavy artillery.” 

Then arose cries in the ditch, which penetrated 
to women’s ears. Neither side was able to help the 
wounded there. But before the rout was complete, 
Croghan had water let down in buckets to relieve 
their thirst, and ordered a trench cut under the 
pickets of the stockade. Through this the poor 
wretches who were able to crawl came in and sur- 
rendered themselves and had their wounds 
dressed. 

By three o’clock in the morning not a British uni- 
form glimmered red through the dawn. The noise 
of retreat ended. Pistols and muskets strewed the 
ground. Even a sailboat was abandoned on the 
river, holding military stores and the clothing of 
officers. 

“They thought General Harrison was coming,” 
laughed Croghan, as he sat down to an early break- 
fast, having relieved all the living in the trench and 
detailed men to bury the dead. “We have lost one 
man, and have another under the surgeon’s hands. 
Now I’m ready to appear before a court-martial 
for disobeying orders.” 

“You mean you’re ready for your immortal page 
in history.” 

“Paragraph,” said Croghan; “and the dislike of 
poor little boys and girls who will stick their fists 


Iv AZ ARRB 


329 


in their eyes when they have to learn it at school.” 

Intense manhood ennobled his long, animated 
face. The President afterwards made him a lieu- 
tenant-colonel, and women and his superior offi- 
cers praised him; but he was never more gallant 
than when he said: 

“My uncle, George Rogers Clarke, would have 
undertaken to hold this fort; and by heavens, we 
were bound to try it!” 

The other young officers sat at mess with him, 
hilarious over the outcome, picturing General Proc- 
tor’s state of mind when he learned the age of his 
conqueror. 

None of them cared a rap that Daniel Webster 
was opposing the war in the House of Representa- 
tives at Washington, and declaring that on land it 
was a failure. 

A subaltern came to the mess room door, touch- 
ing his cap and asking to speak with Major Cro- 
ghan. 

“The men working outside at the trenches saw 
a boy come up from the ravine, sir, and fall every 
few steps, so they’ve brought him in.” 

“Does he carry a dispatch?” 

“No, sir. He isn’t more than nine or ten years 
old. I think he was a prisoner.” 

“Is he a white boy?” 

“Yes, sir, but he’s dressed like an Indian.” 

“I think it unlikely the British would allow the 
Shawanoes to burden their march with any pris- 
oners.” 


330 


A Z A R R B 


‘‘Somebody had him, and I’m afraid he’s been 
shot either during the action or in the retreat. He 
was hid in the ravine.” 

“Bring him here,” said Croghan. 

A boy with blue eyes set wide apart, hair cling- 
ing brightly and moistly to his pallid forehead, and 
mouth corners turning up in a courageous smile, 
entered and stood erect before the officer. He was 
a well made little fellow. His tiny buckskin hunt- 
ing shirt was draped with a sash in the Indian fash- 
ion, showing the curve of his naked hip. Down 
this a narrow line of blood was moving. Children 
of refugees, full of pity, looked through the open 
door behind him. 

“Go to him, Shipp,” said Croghan, as the boy 
staggered. But he waved the ensign back. 

“Who are you, my man?” asked the Major. 

“I believe,” he answered, “I am the Marquis de 
Perrier.” 


IV 


H e pitched forward, and I was quicker 
than Ensign Shipp. I set him on my knees, 
and the surgeon poured a little watered brandy 
down his throat. 

“Paul!” I said to him. 

“Stand back,” ordered the surgeon, as women 
followed their children, crowding the room. 

“Do you know him, Lazarre?” asked Croghan. 
“It’s Madame de Perrier’s child.” 

“Not the baby I used to see at De Chaumont’s? 
What’s he doing at Fort Stephenson?” 

The women made up my bunk for Paul, and I laid 
him in it. Each wanted to take him to her care. 
The surgeon sent them to the cook-house to brew 
messes for him, and stripped the child, finding a 
bullet wound in his side. Probing brought nothing 
out, and I did not ask a single question. The child 
should live. There could be no thought of any- 
thing else. While the surgeon dressed and ban- 
daged that small hole like a sucked-in mouth, I saw 
the boy sitting, on saddle-bags behind me, his arms 
clipping my waist, while we threaded bowers of 
horse paths. I had not known how I wanted a boy 
to sit behind me! No wonder pioneer men were 
so confident and full of jokes: they had children be- 
hind them ! 

331^ 


332 


L AZ ARRK 


He was burning with fever. His eyes swam in it 
as he looked at me. He could not eat when food 
was brought to him, but begged for water, and the 
surgeon allowed him what the women considered 
reckless quantities. Over stockades came the Au- 
gust rustle of the forest. Morning bird voices suc- 
ceeded to the cannon’s reverberations. 

The surgeon turned everybody out but me, and 
looked in by times from his hospital of British 
wounded. I wiped the boy’s forehead and gave him 
his medicine, fanning him all day long. He lay in 
stupor, and the surgeon said he was going com- 
fortably, and would suffer little. Once in awhile 
he turned up the corners of his mouth and smiled 
at me, as if the opiate gave him blessed sensations. 
I asked the surgeon what I should do in the night 
if he came out of it and wanted to talk. 

‘‘Let him talk,” said the doctor briefly. 

Unlike the night before, this was a night of si- 
lence. Everybody slept, but the sentinels, and the 
men whose wounds kept them awake; and I was 
both a sentinel, and a man whose wounds kept him 
awake. 

Paul’s little hands were scratched; and there was 
a stone bruise on the heel he pushed from cover 
of the blankets. His small body, compact of so 
much manliness, was fine and sweet. Though he 
bore no resemblance to his mother, it seemed to 
me that she lay there for me to tend; and the 
change was no more an astounding miracle than the 
change of baby to boy. 


L. AZ ARRK 


333 


I had him all that night for my own, putting 
every other thought out of mind and absorbing his 
presence. His forehead and his face lost their burn- 
ing heat with the coolness of dawn, which blew our 
shaded candle, flowing from miles of fragrant oaks. 

He awoke and looked all around the cabin. I tried 
to p'Ut his opiate into his mouth; but something 
restrained me. I held his hand to my cheek. 

^‘1 like you,’’ he spoke out. ‘‘Don’t you think 
my mother is pretty?” 

I said I thought his mother was the most beauti- 
ful woman in the world. He curled up his mouth 
corners and gave me a blue-eyed smile. 

“My father is not pretty. But he is a gentleman 
of France.” 

“Where are they, Paul?” 

He turned a look upon me without answering. 

“Paul,” I said brutally, “tell me where your 
father and mother are.” 

He was so far gone that my voice recalled him. 
He simply knew me as a voice and a presence that 
he liked. 

“With poor old Ernestine,” he answered. 

“And where is poor old Ernestine?” 

He began to shake as if struck with a chill. I 
drew the blanket closer. 

“Paul, you must tell me!” 

He shook his head. His mouth worked, and his 
little breast went into convulsions. 

He shrieked and threw himself toward me. “My 
pretty little mother!” 


334 


L Az arre: 


I held him still in a tight grip. “My darling — 
don’t start your wound!” 

I could have beaten myself, but the surgeon after- 
wards told me the child was dying when he came 
into the fort. About dawn, when men’s lives sink 
to their lowest ebb with night, his sank away. I 
smoothed his head and kissed and quieted him. 
Once he looked into space with blurred eyes, and 
curled up his mouth corners when I am sure he no 
longer saw me. 

Thus swiftly ended Paul’s unaccountable appear- 
ance at the fort. It was like the falling of a slain 
bird out of the sky at my feet. The women were 
tender with his little body. They cried over him as 
they washed him for burial. The children went out- 
side the stockade and brought green boughs and 
August wild flowers, bearing the early autumn col- 
ors of gold and scarlet. With these they bedded 
the child in his plank coffin, unafraid of his waxen 
sleep. 

Before Croghan went to report to his General, 
he asked me where we should bury the little fel- 
low. 

“In the fort, by the southern blockhouse,” I an- 
swered. “Let Fort Stephenson be his monument. 
It will stand here forever. The woods around it will 
be trampled by prowling savages, and later on by 
prowling white men. Within, nothing will oblit- 
erate the place. Give a little fellow a bed here, who 
died between two countries, and will never be a 
citizen of either.” 


A Z A R R K 


335 


don’t want to make a graveyard of the fort,” 
said Croghan. But he looked at Paul, bent low 
over him^ and allowed him to be buried near the 
southwest angle. 

There the child’s bones rest to this day. The 
town of Fremont in the commonwealth of Ohio 
has grown up around them. Young children who 
climb the grassy bastion, may walk above his head, 
never guessing that a little gentleman of France, 
who died like a soldier of his wound, lies deeply 
cradled there. 

Before throwing myself down in the dead heavi- 
ness which results from continual loss of sleep, I 
questioned the wounded British soldiers about 
Paul. None of them had seen him. Straggling 
bands of Indians continually joined their force. 
Captives were always a possibility in the savage 
camp. Paul might have been taken hundreds of 
miles away. 

But I had the padlocked book, which might tell 
the whole story. With desperate haste that could 
hardly wait to open the lids, I took it out, wonder- 
ing at the patience which long self-restraint had 
bred in me. I was very tired, and stretched my 
arms across the pillow where Paul’s head had lain, 
to rest one instant. But I must have slept. My 
hand woke first, and feeling itself empty, grasped 
at the book. It was gone, and so was the sun. 

I got a light and searched, thrusting my arm be- 
tween the bunk and the log wall. It was not on the 
floor, or in my breast pocket, or in my saddle-bags. 


336 


L AZ ARRB 


The robbery was unendurable. And I knew the 
Indian who had done it. He was the quietest, most 
stubborn Oneida that ever followed an adopted 
white man. Why he had taken the book I could 
not understand. But I was entirely certain that he 
had taken it out of my hand while I slept. He 
would not break the padlock and read it, but like a 
judicious father he would take care of a possibly 
unwholesome volume himself. 

I went out and found the bald-headed and well- 
beloved wretch. He was sitting with his knees to 
his chin by the evening log fire. 

^‘Skenedonk/’ I said, “I want my book.” 

‘^Children and books make a woman of you,” he 
responded. “You had enough books at Long- 
meadow.” 

“I want it at once,” I repeated. 

“It’s sorcery,” he answered. 

“It’s a letter from Madame de Perrier, and may 
tell where she is.” 

His fawn eyes were startled, but he continued to 
hug his knees. 

“Skenedoiik, I can’t quarrel with you. You were 
my friend before I could remember. When you 
know I am so bound to you, how can you deal me 
a deadly hurt?” 

“White woman sorcery is the worst sorcery. 
You thought I never saw it. But I did see it. You 
went after her to Paris. You did not think of being 
the king. So you had to come back with nothing. 
That’s what woman sorcery does. Now you have 


Iv A. Z A R R B 


337 


power with the tribes. The President sees you are 
a big man! And she sends a book to you to be- 
witch you! I knew she sent the book as soon as I 
saw it.” 

“Do you think she sent Paul?” 

He made no answer. 

“Madame de Perrier does not know I have the 
book.” 

“You haven’t it,” said Skenedonk. 

“But you have.” 

“If she wrote and sent a letter she expected it 
would be received.” 

“When I said a letter I meant what is called a 
journal: the writing down of what happens daily. 
Johnny Appleseed got the book from an Indian. 
That is how it was sent to me.” 

“If you read it you will want to drop everything 
else and go to find her.” 

This was the truth, for I was not under military 
law. 

“Where is the book?” 

“Down my back,” said Skenedonk. 

I felt the loose buckskin. 

“It isn’t there.” 

“In my front,” said Skenedonk. 

I ran my hand over his chest, finding nothing but 
bone and brawn. 

“There it is,” he said, pointing to a curled wisp 
of board at the edge of the fire. “I burnt it.” 

“Then you’ve finished me.” 

I turned and left him sitting like an image by the 
fire. 


y 


B efore I left Fort Stephenson, I wrote a 
letter to Count de Chaumont, telling him 
about Paul’s death and asking for news of the 
De Ferriers. The answer I begged him to send 
to Sandusky, which the British now despaired of 
taking. But although Skenedonk made a long jour- 
ney for it twice during the half year, I got no an- 
swer. 

The dangerous work of the next few months be- 
came like a long debauch. Awake, we were dodg- 
ing betwixt hostile tribes, or dealing with those 
inclined to peace. Asleep, I was too exhausted to 
dream. It was a struggle of the white force of 
civilization with the red sense of justice. I 
wrestled with Algonquin dialects as I had wrestled 
with Greek. Ottawas and Chippewas, long friendly 
to the French, came more readily than other tribes 
to agreement with Americans. 

Wherever I went I pushed the quest that was 
uppermost in my mind, but without finding any 
trace of Madame de Ferrier. 

From the measure constantly taken betwixt 
other men of my time and myself, this positive 
knowledge resulted. 

In spite of the fact that many treated me as a 
prince, I found myself an average man. I had no 

338 


Iv AZ ARRB 


339 


military genius. In argument, persuasive, grace- 
ful — even eloquent — were the adjectives applied 
to me; not sweeping and powerful. I should have 
made a jog-trot king, no better than my uncle of 
Provence; no worse than my uncle of Artois, who 
would rather saw wood than reign a constitutional 
monarch, and whom the French people afterward 
turned out to saw wood. My reign might have been 
neat; it would never have been gaudily splendid. 
As an average man, I could well hold my own in 
the world. 

Perry on the lakes. General Jackson in the south- 
west, Harrison in the west, and Lawrence on the 
ocean were pushing the war towards its close; 
though as late as spring the national capitol was 
burned by the British, and a gentleman whom they 
gaily called '‘Old Jimmy Madison,” temporarily 
driven out. But the battle on the little river 
Thames, in October, settled matters in the North- 
west. 

The next April, after Leipsic, Napoleon Bona- 
parte was banished to the island of Elba; and 
Louis XVIII passed from his latest refuge at Hart- 
well House in England, to London; where the 
Prince Regent honored him and the whole capital 
cheered him; and thence to Paris where he was 
proclaimed king of France. We heard of it in due 
course, as ships brought news. I was serving with 
the American forces. 

The world is fluid to a boy. He can do and dare 
anything. But it hardens around a man and be- 


340 


LAZAR RK 


comes a wall through which he must cut. I felt 
the wall close around me. 

In September I was wounded at the battle of 
Plattsburg on Lake Champlain. Three men, be- 
sides the General and the doctor, and my Oneida, 
showed a differing interest in me, while I lay with 
a gap under my left arm, in a hospital tent. 

First came Count de Chaumont, his face plowed 
with lines; no longer the trim gentleman, youth- 
fully easy, and in his full maturity, that he had been 
when I first saw him at close range. 

He sat down on a camp seat by my cot, and I 
asked him before he could speak — 

‘‘Where is Madame de Ferrier?” 

“She’s dead,” he answered. 

“I don’t believe it.” 

“You’re young. I’m going back to France for 
a while. France will not be what it was under the 
Empire. I’m tired of most things, however, and 
my holdings here make me independent of changes 
there.” 

“What reason have you to think that she is 
dead?” 

“Do you know the Indiana Territory well?” 

“The northern part only.” 

“It happened in what was called the Pigeon 
Roost settlement at the fork of the White River. 
The Kickapoos and Winnebagoes did it. There 
were about two dozen people in the settlement.” 

“I asked how you know these things.” 

“I have some of the best Indian runners that ever 


Iv AZ ARRK 


341 


trod moccasins, and when I set them to scouting, 
they generally find what I want; — so I know a great 
many things.’^ 

“But Paul—” 

“It's an old custom to adopt children into the 
tribes. You know your father. Chief Williams, is 
descended from a white girl who was a prisoner. 
There were about two dozen people in the settle- 
ment, men, women and children. The majority of 
the children were dashed against trees. It has been 
consolation to me to think she did not survive in 
the hands of savages.” 

The hidden causes which work out results never 
worked out a result more improbable. I lay silent, 
and De Chaumont said, 

“Do you remember the night you disappeared 
from the Tuileries ?” 

“I remember it.” 

“You remember we determined not to let the 
Marquis de Ferrier see Napoleon. When you went 
down the corridor with Eagle I thought you were 
luring him. But she told us afterward you were 
threatened with arrest, and she helped you out of 
the Tuileries by a private stairway.” 

“Did it make any stir in the palace?” 

“No. I saw one man hurrying past us. But no- 
body heard of the arrest except Eagle.” 

“How did she get out?” 

“Out of what?” 

“The queen’s closet.” 

“She was in the garden. She said she went down 


342 


Iv AZ AR RK 


the private stairway to avoid the gendarme. She 
must have done it cleverly, for she came in on the 
arm of Junot and the matter was not noticed. There 
stood my emergency facing me again. You had 
deserted. What made you imagine you were 
threatened with arrest?” 

“Because a gendarme in court dress laid his hand 
on my shoulder and told me I was to come with 
him.” 

“Well, you may have drawn the secret police 
upon you. You had been cutting a pretty figure. 
It was probably wise to drop between walls and get 
out of France. Do you know why you were ar- 
rested?” 

“I think the groundless charge would have been 
an attack upon Napoleon.” 

“You never attacked the emperor!” 

“No. But I had every reason to believe such a 
charge would be sworn against me if I ever came 
to trial.” 

“Perhaps that silly dauphin story leaked out in 
Paris. The emperor does hate a Bourbon. But I 
thought you had tricked me. And the old marquis 
never took his eyes off the main issue. He gave 
Eagle his arm, and was ready to go in and thank 
the emperor.” 

“You had to tell him?” 

“I had to tell him.” 

“What did he say?” 

“Not a word. All the blood seemed to be drawn 
out of his veins, and his face fell in. Then it burned 


Iv AZ ARRE 


343 


red hot, and instead of good friend and benefactor, 
I saw myself a convict. His big staring blue eyes 
came out of a film like an owl’s, and shot me 
through. I believe he saw everything I ever did in 
my life, and my intentions about Eagle most plainly 
of all. He bowed and wished me good-night, and 
took her out of the Tuileries.” 

^‘But you saw him again?” 

“He never let me see him again, or her either. I 
am certain he forbade her to communicate with us. 
They did not go back to Mont-Louis. They left 
their hotel in Paris. I wrote imploring him to hold 
the estates. My messages were returned. I don’t 
know how he got money enough to emigrate. But 
emigrate they did; avoiding Castorland, where the 
Saint-Michels, who brought her up, lived in com- 
fort, and might have comforted her, and where I 
could have made her life easy. He probably 
dragged her through depths of poverty, before they 
joined a company bound for the Indiana Territory, 
where the Pigeon Roost settlement was planted. I 
have seen old Saint-Michel work at clearing, and 
can imagine the Marquis de Perrier sweating 
weakly while he chopped trees. It is a satisfaction 
to know they had Ernestine with them. De Eerrier 
might have plowed with Eagle,” said the count 
hotly. “He never hesitated to make use of her.” 

While I had been living a monk’s studious, well- 
provided life, was she toiling in the fields? I 
groaned aloud. 

De Chaumont dropped his head on his breast. 


344 


Iv AZ ARRK 


hurts me more than I care to let anybody 
but you know, Lazarre. If I hadn’t received that 
letter I should have avoided you. I wish you had 
saved Paul. I would adopt him.” 

“I think not, my dear count.” 

“Nonsense, boy! I wouldn’t let you have 
him.” 

“You have a child.” 

“Her husband has her. But let us not pitch and 
toss words. No use quarreling over a dead boy. 
What right have you to Eagle’s child?” 

“Not your right of faithful useful friendship. 
Only my own right.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Nothing that she ever admitted.” 

“I was afraid of you,” said De Chaumont, “when 
you flowered out with old Du Plessy, like an heir 
lost in emigration and found again. You were a 
startling fellow, dropping on the Faubourg; and 
anything was possible under the Empire. You know 
I never believed the dauphin nonsense, but a few 
who remembered, said you looked like the king. 
You were the king to her; above mating with the 
best of the old nobility. She wouldn’t have mar- 
ried you.” 

“Did she ever give you reason to think she would 
marry you?” 

“She never gave me reason to think she would 
marry anybody. But what’s the use of groaning? 
There’s distraction abroad. I took the trails to see 
you, when I heard you were with the troops on 


Iv A2: ARRK 


345 

Champlain. I shall be long in France. What can 
I do for you, my boy?” 

‘‘Nothing, count. You have already done much.” 

“She had a foolish interest in you. The dauphin! 
— Too good to sit at table with us, you raw sav- 
age! — Had to be waited on by old Jean! And she 
would have had me serve you, myself!” 

He laughed, and so did 1. We held hands, cling- 
ing in fellowship. 

“I might not have refused your service; like 
Marquis de Ferrier.” 

The count’s face darkened. 

“I’ll not abuse him. He’s dead.” 

“Are you sure he’s dead this time, count?” 

“A Kickapoo is carrying his scalp. Trust my 
runners. They have traced him so much for me 
they know the hair on his stubborn head. I must 
go where I can have amusement, Lazarre. This 
country is a young man’s country. I’m getting old. 
Adieu. You’re one of the young men.” 

Some changes of light and darkness passed over 
me, and the great anguish of my wound increased 
until there was no rest. However, the next man 
who visited me stood forth at the side of the 
stretcher as Bellenger. I thought I dreamed him, 
being light-headed with fever. He was unaccount- 
ably weazened, robbed of juices, and powdering to 
dust on the surface. His mustache had grown again, 
and he carried it over his ears in the ridiculous man- 
ner affected when I saw him in the fog. 

“Where’s your potter’s wheel?” I inquired. 


346 




“In the woods by Lake George, Sire.” 

“Do you still find clay that suits you?” 

“Yes, sire.” 

“Have you made that vase yet?” 

“No, sire. I succeed in nothing.” 

“You succeed in tracking me.” 

He swam before my eyes, and I pointed to the 
surgeon’s camp-chair. 

“Not in your presence, sire.” 

“Have you lost your real dauphin?” I inquired. 

“I have the honor of standing before the real 
dauphin.” 

“So you swore at Mittau!” 

“I perjured myself.” 

“Well, what are you doing now?” 

“Sire, I am a man in failing health. Before the 
end I have come to tell you the truth.” 

“Do you think you can do it?” 

“Sire” — said Bellenger. 

“Your king is Louis XVIH,” I reminded him. 

“He is not my king.” 

“Taken your pension away, has he?” 

“I no longer receive anything from that court.” 

“And your dauphin?” 

“He was left in Europe.” 

“Look here, Bellenger! Why did you treat me 
so? Dauphin or no dauphin, what harm was I do- 
ing you?” 

“I thought a strong party was behind you. And 
I knew there had been double dealing with me. You 
represented some invisible power tricking me. I 


Iv A Z A R R H 


347 


was beside myself, and faced it out in Mittau. I 
have been used shamefully, and thrown aside when 
I am failing. Hiding out in the hills ruined my 
health.’’ 

^‘Let us get to facts, if you have facts. Do you 
know anything about me, Bellenger?” 

“Yes, sire.” 

“Who am I?” 

“Louis XVII of France.” 

“What proof can you give me?” 

“First, sire, permit a man who has been made 
a wretched tool, to implore forgiveness of his right- 
ful sovereign, and a little help to reach a warmer 
climate before the rigors of a northern winter be- 
gin. 

“Bellenger, you are entrancing,” I said. “Why 
did I ever take you seriously? Ste. Pelagie was a 
grim joke, and tipping in the river merely your 
playfulness. You better take yourself ofif now, and 
keep on walking until you come to a warmer cli- 
mate.” 

He wrung his hands with a gesture that touched 
my natural softness to my enemy. 

“Talk, then. Talk, man. What have you to say?” 

“This, first, sire. That was a splendid dash you 
made into France!” 

“And what a splendid dash I made out of it 
again, with a gendarme at my coat tails, and you 
behind the gendarme!” 

“But it was the wrong time. If you were there 
now; — the French people are so changeable — ” 


348 


I. AZ ARRK 


“I shall never be there again. His Majesty the 
eighteenth Louis is welcome. What the blood stirs 
in me to know is, have I a right to the throne?” 

^‘Sire, the truth as I know it, I will tell you. You 
were the boy taken from the Temple prison.” 

“Who did it?” 

“Agents of the royalist party whose names would 
mean nothing to you if I gave them.” 

“I was placed in your hands?” 

“You were placed in my hands to be taken to 
America.” 

“I was with you in London, where two royalists 
who knew me, recognized me?” 

“The two De Terriers.” 

“Did a woman named Madame Tank see me?” 

Bellenger was startled. 

“You were noticed on the ship by a court-lady 
of Holland; a very clever courtier. I had trouble 
in evading her. She suspected too much, and 
asked too many questions; and would have you to 
play with her baby on the deck, though at that time 
you noticed nothing.” 

“But where does the idiot come into my 
story ?” 

“Sire, you have been unfortunate, but I have 
been a victim. When we landed in New York I 
went directly and made myself known to the man 
who was to act as purveyor of your majesty’s pen- 
sion. He astonished me by declaring that the 
dauphin was already there, and had claimed the pen- 
sion for that year. The country and the language 


AZ ARRE 


349 


were unknown to me. The agent spoke French, 
it is true, but we hardly understood each other. I 
supposed I had nothing to do but present my cre- 
dentials. Here was another idiot — I crave your 
majesty’s pardon — ” 

“Quite right — at the time, Bellenger.” 

— “drawing the annuity intended for the dauphin. 
I inquired into his rights. The agent showed me 
papers like my own. I asked who presented them. 
He knew no more of the man than he did of me. 
I demanded to face the man. No such person could 
be found. I demanded to see the idiot. He was 
shut in a room and fed by a hired keeper. I sat 
down and thought much. Clearly it was not the 
agent’s affair. He followed instructions. Good! 
I would follow instructions also. Months would 
have been required to ask and receive explanations 
from the court of Monsieur. He had assumed the 
title of Louis XVHI, for the good of the royalist 
cause, as if there were no prince. I thought I saw 
what was expected of me.” 

“And what did you see, you unspeakable scoun- 
drel?” 

“I saw that there was a dauphin too many, hope- 
lessly idiotic. But if he was the one to be guarded, 
I would guard him.” 

“Who was that idiot?” 

“Some unknown pauper. No doubt of that.” 

“And what did you do with me?” 

“A chief of the Iroquois Indians can tell you 
that.” 


350 


Iv AZ ARRK 


'This is a clumsy story, Bellenger. Try again/’ 

"Sire—” 

"If you knew so little of the country, how did 
you find an Iroquois chief?” 

"I met him in the woods when he was hunting. I 
offered to give you to him, pretending you had the 
annuity from Europe. Sire, I do not know why 
trickery was practiced on me, or who practiced it: 
why such pains were taken to mix the clues which 
led to the dauphin. But afterwards the same agent 
had orders to give you two-thirds and me only one- 
third of the yearly sum. I thought the court was 
in straits ; — when both Russia and Spain supported 
it! I was nothing but a court painter. But when 
you went to France, I blocked your way with all 
the ingenuity I could bring.” 

"I would like to ask you, Bellenger, what a man 
is called who attempts the life of his king?” 

"Sire, the tricks of royalists pitted us against 
each other.” 

"That’s enough, Bellenger. I don’t believe a 
word you say, excepting that part of your story 
agreeing with Madame de Perrier’s. Put your 
hand under my pillow and find my wallet. Now help 
yourself, and never let me see you again.” 

He helped himself to everything except a few 
shillings, weeping because his necessities were so 
great. But I told him I was used to being robbed, 
and he had done me all the harm he could; so his 
turn to pluck me naturally followed. 

Then I softened, as I always do towards the party 


ly AZ ARRB 


351 

of the other part, and added that we were on the 
same footing; I had been a pensioner myself. 

“Sire, I thank you,” said Bellenger, having 
shaken the wallet and poked his fingers into the 
lining where an unheard-of gold piece could have 
lodged. 

“It tickles my vanity to be called sire.” 

“You are a true prince,” said Bellenger. “My life 
would be well spent if I could see you restored to 
your own.” 

“So I infer, from the valuable days you have 
spent trying to bring that result about.” 

“Your majesty is sure of finding support in 
France.” 

“The last king liked to tinker with clocks. Per- 
haps I like to tinker with Indians.” 

“Sire, it is due to your birth — ” 

“Never mind my birth,” I said. “Fm busy with 
my life.” 

He bowed himself out of my presence without 
turning. This tribute to royalty should have 
touched me. He took a handsome adieu, and did 
not afterward seek further reward for his service. 
I heard in the course of years that he died in New 
Orleans, confessing much regarding myself to peo- 
ple who cared nothing about it, and thought him 
crazy. They doubtless had reason, so erratic was 
the wanderer whom I had first consciously seen 
through Lake George fog. His behavior was no 
more incredible than the behavior of other French- 


352 


Iv AZ ARRB 


men who put a hand to the earlier years of their 
prince’s life. 

The third to appear at my tent door was Chief 
Williams, himself. The surgeon told him outside 
the tent that it was a dangerous wound. He had 
little hope for me, and I had indifferent hope my- 
self, lying in torpor and finding it an effort to speak. 
But after several days of effort I did speak. 

The chief sat beside me, concerned and silent. 

“Father,” I said. 

The chief harkened near to my lips. 

“Tell me,” I begged, after resting, “who brought 
me to you.” 

His dark sullen face became tender. “It was a 
Frenchman,” he answered. “I was hunting and 
met him on the lake with two boys. He offered to 
give you to me. We had just lost a son.” 

When I had rested again, I asked: 

“Do you know anything else about me?” 

“No.” 

The subject was closed between us. And all sub- 
jects were closed betwixt the world and me, for my 
face turned the other way. The great void of which 
we know nothing, but which our faith teaches us to 
bridge, opened for me. 


VI 


B ut the chiefs and Skenedonk’s nursing and 
Indian remedies brought me face earthward 
again, reviving the surgeon’s hope. 

When blood and life mounted, and my torn side 
sewed up its gap in a healthy scar, adding another 
to my collection, autumn was upon us. From the 
hunting lodges on Lake George, and the Williamses 
of Longmeadow, I went to the scorched capital of 
Washington. In the end the Government helped 
me with my Indian plan, though when Skenedonk 
and I pushed out toward Illinois Territory we had 
only my pay and a grant of land. Peace was not 
formally made until December, but the war ended 
that summer. 

Man’s success in the world is proportioned to the 
number of forces he can draw around himself to 
work with him. I have been able to draw some 
forces; though in matters where most people pro- 
tect themselves, I have a quality of asinine patience 
which the French would not have tolerated. 

The Oneidas were ready to follow wherever I led 
them. And so were many families of the Iroquois 
federation. But the Mohawk tribe held back. How- 
ever, I felt confident of material for an Indian state 
when the foundation should be laid. 

We started lightly equipped upon the horse 

353 


354 


Iv AZ ARRK 

paths. The long journey by water and shore 
brought us in September to the head of Green Bay. 
We had seen Lake Michigan, of a light transparent 
blueness, with fire ripples chasing from the sunset. 
And we had rested at noon in plum groves on the 
vast prairies, oases of fertile deserts, where pink 
and white fruit dropped at our feet, so ripe that the 
sun preserved it in its juice. The freshness of the 
new world continually flowed around us. We shot 
deer. Wolves sneaked upon our trail. We slept 
with our heels to the campfire, and our heads on 
our saddles. Sometimes we built a hunter’s shed, 
open at front and sloping to ground at back. To 
find out how the wind blew, we stuck a finger in 
our mouths and held it up. The side which became 
cold first was the side of the wind. 

Physical life riots in the joy of its revival. I was 
so glad to be alive after touching death that I could 
think of Madame de Perrier without pain, and say 
more confidently — “She is not dead,” because res- 
urrection was working in myself. 

Green Bay or La Baye, as the fur hunters called 
it, was a little post almost like a New England vil- 
lage among its elms : one street and a few outlying 
houses beside the Fox River. The open world had 
been our tavern; or any sod or log hut cast up like 
a burrow of human prairie dogs or moles. We did 
not expect to find a tavern in Green Bay. Yet such 
a place was pointed out to us near the Fur Com- 
pany’s block warehouse. It had no sign post, and 
the only visible stable was a pen of logs. Though 


Iv AZ ARRB 


355 


negro slaves were owned in the Illinois Territory, 
we saw none when a red-headed man rushed forth 
shouting: 

'‘Sam, you lazy nigger, come here and take the 
gentleman’s horses! Where is that Sam? Light 
down, sir, with your Indian, and I will lead your 
beasts to the hostler myself.” 

In the same way our host provided a supper and 
bed with armies of invisible servants. Skenedonk 
climbed a ladder to the loft with our saddlebags. 

“Where is that chambermaid?” cried the tavern 
keeper. 

“Yes, where is she?” said a man who lounged on 
a bench by the entrance. “I’ve heard of her so 
often I would like to see her myself.” 

The landlord, deaf to raillery, bustled about and 
spread our table in his public room. 

“Corn bread, hominy, side meat, ven’zin,” 
he shouted in the kitchen. “Stir yourself, you 
black rascal, and dish up the gentleman’s supper.” 

Skenedonk walked boldly to the kitchen door 
and saw our landlord stewing and broiling, per- 
forming the offices of cook as he had performed 
those of stableman. He kept on scolding and har- 
rying the people who should have been at his com- 
mand: — “Step around lively, Sam. Tell the gentle- 
man the black bottle is in the fireplace cupboard if 
he wants to sharpen his appetite. Where is that 
little nigger that picks up chips? Bring me some 
more wood from the wood-pile! Til teach you to 
go to sleep behind the door !” 


356 


Iv AZ ARRK 


Our host served us himself, running with sleeves 
turned back to admonish an imaginary cook. His 
tap-room was the fireplace cupboard, and it was 
visited while we ate our supper, by men in elkskin 
trousers, and caps and hooded capotes of blue cloth. 
These Canadians mixed their own drink, and made 
a cross-mark on the inside of the cupboard door, 
using a system of bookkeeping evidently agreed 
upon between themselves and the landlord. He 
shouted for the lazy barkeeper, who answered 
nothing out of nothingness. 

Nightfall was very clear and fair in this North- 
western territory. A man felt nearer to the sunset. 
The region took hold upon me: particularly when 
one who was neither a warehouseman nor a Cana- 
dian fur hunter, hurried in and took me by the hand. 

^T am Pierre Grignon,” he said. 

Indeed, if he had held his fiddle, and tuned it 
upon an arm not quite so stout, I should have 
known without being told that he was the man 
who had played in the Saint-Michel cabin while 
Annabel de Chaumont climbed the chimney. 

We sat and talked until the light faded. The 
landlord brought a candle, and yelled up the loft, 
where Skenedonk had already stretched himself in 
his blanket, as he loved to do : 

“Chambermaid, light up!” 

“You drive your slaves too hard, landlord,” said 
Pierre Grignon. 

“You’d think I hadn’t any, Mr. Grignon; for 
they’re never in the way when they’re wanted.” 


Iv A Z A R R K 


357 


“One industrious man you certainly have.” 

“Yes, Sam is a good fellow; but I’ll have to go 
out and wake him up and make him rub the horses 
down/ 

“Never mind,” said Pierre Grignon. “I’m going 
to take these travelers home with me.” 

“Now I know how a tavern ought to be kept,” 
said the landlord. “But what’s the use of my keep- 
ing one if Pierre Grignon carries off all the guests?” 

“He is my old friend,” I told the landlord. 

“He’s old fiiend to everybody that comes to 
Green Bay. I’ll never get so much as a sign 
painted to hang in front of the Palace Tavern.” 

I gave him twice his charges and he said: 

“What a loss it was to enterprise in the Bay when 
Pierre Grignon came here and built for the whole 
United States!” 

The Grignon house, whether built for the whole 
United States or not, was the largest in Green Bay. 
Its lawn sloped down to the Fox River. It was a 
huge square of oak timbers, with a detached kitch- 
en, sheltered by giant elms. To this day it stands 
defying time with its darkening frame like some 
massive rock, the fan windows in the gables keeping 
guard north and south. 

A hall divided the house through the center, and 
here Madame Grignon welcomed me as if I were 
a long-expected guest, for this was her custom; 
and as soon as she clearly remembered me, led me 
into a drawing-room where a stately old lady sat 
making lace. 


358 


LAZ ARRE 


This was the grandmother of the house. Such 
a house would have been incomplete without a 
grandmother at the hearth. 

The furniture of this hall or family room had 
been brought from Montreal; spindle chairs and 
a pier table of mahogany; a Turkey carpet, laid 
smoothly on the polished floor to be spurned aside 
by young dancers there; some impossible sea pic- 
tures, with patron saints in the clouds over mari- 
ners; an immense stuffed sofa, with an arm divid- 
ing it across the center; — the very place for those 
head-to-head conversations with young men which 
the girls of the house called ‘'twosing.” It was, in 
fact, the favorite “twosing” spot of Green Bay. 

Stools there were for children, and armchairs 
for old people were not lacking. The small yellow 
spinning wheel of Madame Ursule, as I found after- 
wards Madame Grignon was commonly called, 
stood ready to revolve its golden disc wherever she 
sat. 

The servants were Pawnee Indians, moving 
about their duties almost with stealth. 

The little Grignon daughter who had stood lost 
in wonder at the dancing of Annabel de Chaumont, 
was now a turner of heads herself, all flaxen white, 
and contrasting with the darkness of Katarina 
Tank. Katarina was taken home to the Grignon’s 
after her mother’s death. Both girls had been edu- 
cated in Montreal. 

The seigniorial state in which Pierre Grignon 
lived became at once evident. I found it was the 


Iv AZ A.RRK 


359 


custom during Advent for all the villagers to meet 
in his house and sing hymns. On Christmas day 
his tables were loaded for everybody who came. 
If any one died, he was brought to Pierre Grignon’s 
for prayer, and after his burial, the mourners went 
back to Pierre Grignon’s for supper. Pierre Grig- 
non and his wife were god-father and god-mother 
to most of the children born at La Baye. If a child 
was left without father and mother, Pierre Grig- 
non’s house became its asylum until a home could 
be found for it. The few American officers sta- 
tioned at the old stockade, nearly every evening 
met the beauties of Green Bay at Pierre Grignon’s, 
and if he did not fiddle for them he led Madame in 
the dancing. The grandmother herself sometimes 
took her stick and stepped through a measure to 
please the young people. Laughter and the joy of 
life filled the house every waking hour of the twen- 
ty-four. Funerals were never horrible there. In- 
stead, they seemed the mystic beginning of better 
things. 

“Poor Madame Tank! She would have been so 
much more comfortable in her death if she had re- 
lieved her mind,” Madame Ursule said, the first 
evening, as we sat in a pause of the dancing. “She 
used to speak of you often, for seeing you made a 
great impression upon her, and she never let us 
forget you. I am sure she knew more about you 
than she ever told me. T have an important dis- 
closure to make,’ she says. ‘Come around me, I 


3^0 


Iv AZ ARRB 


want all of you to hear it !’ Then she fell back and 
died without telling it.” 

A touch of mystery was not lacking to the house. 
Several times I saw the tail of a gray gown disap- 
pear through an open door. Some woman half 
entered and drew back. 

“It’s Madeleine Jordan/’ an inmate told me each 
time. “She avoids strangers.” 

I asked if Madeleine Jordan was a relative. 

“Oh, no,” Madame Ursule replied; “but the 
family who brought her here, went back to Can- 
ada, and of course they left her with us.” 

Of course Madeleine Jordan, or anybody else 
who lacked a roof, would be left with the Grig- 
nons; but in that house a hermit seemed out of 
place, and I said so to Madame Ursule. 

“Poor child!” she responded. “I think she likes 
the bustle and noise. She is not a hermit. What 
difference can it make to her whether people are 
around her or not?” 

The subject of Madeleine Jordan was no doubt 
beyond a man’s handling. I had other matters to 
think about, and directly plunged into them. First 
the Menominees and Winnebagoes must be assem- 
bled in council. They held all the desirable land. 

“We don’t like your Indian scheme in Green 
Bay,” said Pierre Grignon. “But if the tribes here 
are willing to sell their lands, other settlers can’t 
prevent it.” 

He went with me to meet the savages on the 
opposite side of the Fox near the stockade. There 


AZ A RRB 


361 


the talking and eating lasted two days. At the end 
of that time I had a footing for our Iroquois in the 
Wisconsin portion of the Illinois Territory; and 
the savages who granted it danced a war dance in 
our honor. Every brave shook over his head the 
scalps he had taken. I saw one cap of soft long 
brown hair. 

'‘Eh!’^ said Pierre Grignon, sitting beside me. 
‘‘Their dirty trophies make you ghastly! Do your 
eastern tribes never dance war dances?” 

After the land was secured its boundaries had to 
be set. Then my own grant demanded attention; 
and last, I was anxious to put my castle on it be- 
fore snow flew. Many of those late autumn nights 
Skenedonk and I spent camping. The outdoor life 
was a joy to me. Our land lay up the Fox River 
and away from the bay. But more than one stormy 
autumn evening, when we came back to the bay for 
supplies, I plunged into the rolling water and swam 
breasting the waves. It is good to be hardy, and 
sane, and to take part in the visible world, whether 
you are great and have your heart’s desire or not. 

When we had laid the foundation of the Indian 
settlement, I built my house with the help of skilled 
men. It was a spacious one of hewn logs, chinked 
with cat-and-clay plaster, showing its white ribs 
on the hill above the Fox. In time I meant to cover 
the ribs with perennial vines. There was a spring 
near the porches. The woods banked me on the 
rear, and an elm spread its colossal umbrella over 
the roof. Fertile fields stretched at my left, and on 


362 


Iv AZ ARRB 


my right a deep ravine lined with white birches,' 
carried a stream to the Fox. 

From my stronghold to the river was a long de- 
scent. The broadening and narrowing channel 
could be seen for miles. A bushy island, beloved 
of wild ducks, parted the water, lying as Moses hid 
in osiers, amidst tall growths of wild oats. Lily 
pads stretched their pavements in the oats. Beyond 
were rolling banks, and beyond those, wooded hills 
rising terrace over terrace to the dawn. Many 
a sunrise was to come to me over those hills. Oaks 
and pines and sumach gathered to my doorway. 

In my mind I saw the garden we afterward cre- 
ated; with many fruit trees, beds, and winding 
walks, trellised seats, squares of flaming tulips, 
phlox, hollyhocks, roses. It should reach down 
into the ravine, where humid ferns and rocks met 
plants that love darkling ground. Yet it should not 
be too dark. I would lop boughs rather than have 
a growing thing spindle as if rooted in Ste. Pe- 
lagie! — and no man who loves trees can do that 
without feeling the knife at his heart. What is 
long developing is precious like the immortal part 
of us. 

The stoicism that comes of endurance has’ 
something of death in it. I prepared a home with- 
out thought of putting any wife therein. I had 
grown used to being alone, with the exception of 
Skenedonk’s taciturn company. The house was for 
castle and resting place after labor. I took satis- 
faction in the rude furniture we made for it. In 


L AZ ARRE 


363 


after years it became filled with rich gifts from the 
other side of the world, and books that have glad- 
dened my heart. Yet in its virginhood, before pain 
or joy or achievement had entered there, before 
spade struck the ground which was to send up food, 
my holding on the earth’s surface made me feel 
prince of a principality. 

The men hewed a slab settle, and stationed it be- 
fore the hearth, a thing of beauty in its rough and 
lichen-tinted barks, though you may not believe it. 
My floors I would have smooth and neatly joined, 
of hard woods which give forth a shining for wear 
and polish. Stools I had, easily made, and one 
large round of a tree for my table, like an Eastern 
tabouret. 

Before the river closed and winter shut in, Sken- 
edonk and I went back to Green Bay. I did not 
know how to form my household, and had it in mind 
to consult Madame Ursule. Pawnees could be 
had: and many French landholders in the territory 
owned black slaves. Pierre Grignon himself kept 
one little negro like a monkey among the stately 
Indians. 

Dealing with acres, and with people wild as 
flocks, would have been worth while if nothing had 
resulted except our welcome back to Pierre Grig- 
non’s open house. The grandmother hobbled on 
her stick across the floor to give me her hand. 
Madame Ursule reproached me with delaying, and 
Pierre said it was high time to seek winter quar- 
ters. The girls recounted harvest reels and even 


364 


LAZ ARRB 


weddings, with dances following, which I had lost 
while away from the center of festivity. 

The little negro carried my saddlebags to the 
guest room. Skenedonk was to sleep on the floor. 
Abundant preparations for the evening meal were 
going forward in the kitchen. As I mounted the 
stairway at Madame Ursule’s direction, I heard a 
tinkle of china, her very best, which adorned racks 
and dressers. It was being set forth on the mahog- 
any board. 

The upper floor of Pierre Grignon’s house was 
divided by a hall similar to the one below. I ran 
upstairs and halted. 

Standing with her back to the fading light which 
came through one fan window at the hall end, was 
a woman’s figure in a gray dress. I gripped the 
rail. 

My first thought was: “How shall I tell her 
about Paul?” My next was: “What is the matter 
with her?” 

She rippled from head to foot in the shiver of 
rapture peculiar to her, and stretched her arms to 
me crying : 

“Paul! Paul!” 


VII 


MADAME!” I said, bewildered, and 
V_^ sick as from a stab. It was no comfort 
that the high lady who scarcely allowed me to 
kiss her hand before we parted, clung around my 
neck. She trembled against me. 

‘‘Have you come back to your mother, Paul?” 

“Eagle!” I pleaded. “Don’t you know me? You 
surely know Lazarre!” 

She kissed me, pulling my head down in her 
arms, the velvet mouth like a baby’s, and looked 
straight into my eyes. 

“Madame, try to understand! I am Louis! If 
you forget Lazarre, try to remember Louis!” 

She heard with attention, and smiled. The pres- 
sure of my arms spoke to her. A man’s passion 
addressed itself to a little child. All other barriers 
which had stood between us were nothing to this. 
I held her, and she could never be mine. She was 
not ill in body; the contours of her upturned face 
were round and softened with much smiling. But 
mind-sickness robbed me of her in the moment of 
finding her. 

“She can’t be insane!” I said aloud. “Oh, God, 
anything but that! She was not a woman that could 
be so wrecked.” 


36s 


366 


Iv AZ ARRB 


Like a fool I questioned, and tried to get some 
explanation. 

Eagle smoothed my arm, nested her hand in my 
neck. 

“My little boy! He has grown to be a man — 
while his mother has grown down to be a child! 
Do you know what I am now, Paul?” 

I choked a sob in my throat and told her I did 
not. 

“I am your Cloud-Mother. I live in a cloud. 
Do you love me while I am in the cloud?” 

I told her I loved her with all my strength, in 
the cloud or out of it. 

“Will you take care of me as I used to take care 
of you?” 

I swore to the Almighty that she should be my 
future care. 

“I need you so! I have watched for you in the 
woods and on the water, Paul! You have been 
long coming back to me.” 

I heard Madame Ursule mounting the stairs to 
see if my room was in order. 

Who could understand the relation in which 
Eagle and I now stood, and the claim she made 
upon me? She clung to my arm when I took it 
away. I led her by the hand. Even this sight 
caused Madame Ursule a shock at the head of the 
stairs. 

“M’s’r Williams!” 

My hostess paused and looked at us. 

“Did she come to you of her own accord?” 


L A Z A R R K 


367 


*‘Yes, madame.” 

'1 never knew her to notice a stranger before.’’ 

“Madame, do you know who this is?” 

“Madeleine Jordan.” 

“It is the Marquise de Ferrier.” 

“The Marquise de Ferrier?” 

“Yes, madame.” 

“Did you know her?” 

“I have known her ever since I can remem- 
ber.” 

“The Marquise de Ferrier! But, M’s’r Williams, 
did she know you?” 

“She knows me,” I asserted. “But not as my- 
self. I am sure she knows me! But she confuses 
me with the child she lost! I cannot explain to 
you, madame, how positive I am that she recog- 
nizes me; any more than I can explain why she 
will call me Paul. I think I ought to tell you, so 
you will see the position in which I am placed, that 
this lady is the lady I once hoped to marry.” 

“Saints have pity, M’s’r Williams!” 

“I want to ask you some questions.” 

“Bring her down to the fire. Come, dear child,” 
said Madame Ursule, coaxing Eagle. “Nobody is 
there. The bedrooms can never be so warm as the 
log fire; and this is a bitter evening.” 

The family room was unlighted by candles, as 
often happened. For such an illumination in the 
chimney must have quenched any paler glare. We 
had a few moments of brief privacy from the 
swarming life which constantly passed in and out. 


368 


Iv AZ ARRB 


I placed Eagle by the fire and she sat there obe- 
diently, while I talked to Madame Ursule apart. 

‘Was her mind in this state when she came to 
you?” 

“She was even a little wilder than she is now. 
The girls have been a benefit to her.” 

“They were not afraid of her?” 

“Who could be afraid of the dear child? She is 
a lady — that’s plain. Ah, M’s’r Williams, what she 
must have gone through!” 

“Yet see how happy she looks!” 

“She always seemed happy enough. She would 
come to this house. So when the Jordans went to 
Canada, Pierre and I both said, ‘Let her stay.’ ” 

“Who were the Jordans?” 

“The only family that escaped with their lives 
from the massacre when she lost her family. Ma- 
dame Jordan told me the whole story. They had 
friends among the Winnebagoes who protected 
them.” 

“Did they give her their name?” 

“No, the people in La Baye did that. We knew 
she had another name. But I think it very likely 
her title was not used in the settlement where they 
lived. Titles are no help in pioneering.” 

“Did they call her Madeleine?” 

“She calls herself Madeleine.” 

“How long has she been with your family?” 

“Nearly a year.” 

“Did the Jordans tell you when this change came 
over her?” 


Iv AZ ARRB 


369 


“Yes. It was during the attack when her child 
was taken from her. She saw other children killed. 
The Indians were afraid of her. They respect de- 
mented people; not a bit of harm was done to her. 
They let her alone, and the Jordans took care of 
her.” 

The daughter and adopted daughter of the house 
came in with a rush of outdoor air, and seeing 
Eagle first, ran to kiss her on the cheek one after 
the other. 

“Madeleine has come down!” said Marie. 

“I thought we should coax her in here some- 
time,” said Katarina. 

Between them, standing slim and tall, their equal 
in height, she was yet like a little sister. Though 
their faces were unlined, hers held a divine youth. 

To see her stricken with mind-sickness, and the 
two girls who had done neither good nor evil, exist- 
ing like plants in sunshine, healthy and sound, 
seemed an iniquitous contrast. 

If ever woman was made for living and dying in 
one ancestral home, she was that woman. Yet she 
stood on the border of civilization, without a foot- 
hold to call her own. If ever woman was made 
for one knightly love which would set her in high 
places, she was that woman. Yet here she stood, 
her very name lost, no man so humble as to do her 
reverence. 

“Paul has come,” Eagle told Katarina and Ma- 
rie. Holding their hands, she walked between them 
toward me, and bade them notice my height. “I 


370 


ly AZ AR RB 


am his Cloud-Mother/’ she said. *^How droll it is 
that parents grow down little, while their children 
grow up big!” 

Madame Ursule shook her head pitifully. But 
the girls really saw the droll side and laughed with 
my Cloud-Mother. 

Separated from me by an impassable barrier, she 
touched me more deeply than when I sued her 
most. The undulating ripple which was her pecu- 
liar expression of joy was more than I could bear. 
I left the room and was flinging myself from the 
house to walk in the chill wind; but she caught me. 

'T will be good!” pleaded my Cloud-Mother, her 
face in my breast. 

Her son who had grown up big^ while she grew 
down little, went back to the family room with 
her. 

My Cloud-Mother sat beside me at table, and 
insisted on cutting up my food for me. While I 
tried to eat, she asked Marie and Katarina and 
Pierre Grignon and Madame Ursule to notice how 
well I behaved. The tender hearted host wiped his 
eyes. 

I understood why she had kept such hold upon 
me through years of separateness. A nameless 
personal charm, which must be a gift of the spirit, 
survived all wreck and change. It drew me, and 
must draw me forever, whether she knew me again 
or not. One meets and wakes you to vivid life in 
an immortal hour. Thousands could not do it 
through eternity. 


Iv AZ ARRB 


371 


The river piled hillocks of water in a strong north 
wind, and no officer crossed from the stockade. 
Neither did any neighbor leave his own fire. It sel- 
dom happened that the Grignons were left with 
inmates alone. Eagle sat by me and watched the 
blaze streaming up the chimney. 

If she was not a unit in the family group and had 
no part there, they were most kind to her. 

“Take care!” the grandmother cried with swift 
forethought when Marie and Katarina marshalled 
in a hopping object from the kitchen. “It might 
frighten Madeleine.” 

Pierre Grignon stopped in the middle of a bear 
hunt. Eagle was not frightened. She clapped her 
hands. 

“This is a pouched turkey!” Marie announced, 
leaning against the wall, while Katarina chased the 
fowl. It was the little negro, his arms and feet 
thrust into the legs of a pair of Pierre Grignon's 
trousers, and the capacious open top fastened upon 
his back. Doubled over, he waddled and hopped 
as well as he could. A feather duster was stuck in 
for a tail, and his woolly head gave him the uncanny 
look of a black harpy. To see him was to shed 
tears of laughter. The pouched turkey enjoyed 
being a pouched turkey. He strutted and gobbled, 
and ran at the girls ; tried to pick up corn from the 
floor with his thick lips, tumbling down and rolling 
over in the effort; for a pouched turkey has no 
wings with which to balance himself. So much 
hilarity in the family room drew the Pawnee ser- 


372 


Iv AZ ARRK 


vants. I saw their small dark eyes in a mere line 
of open door, gazing solemnly. 

When the turkey was relieved from his pouching 
and sent to bed, Pierre Grignon took his violin. 
The girls answered with jigs that ended a reel^ 
when couples left the general figure to jig it off. 

When Eagle had watched them awhile she 
started up, spread her skirts in a sweeping cour- 
tesy, and began to dance a gavotte. The fiddler 
changed his tune, and the girls rested and watched 
her. Alternately swift and languid, with the 
changes of the movement, she saluted backward 
to the floor, or spun on the tips of rapid feet. I 
had seen her dance many times, but never with 
such abandon of joy. 

Our singular relationship was established in the 
house, where hospitality made room and apology 
for all human weakness. 

Nobody of that region, except the infirm, stayed 
indoors to shiver by a fire. Eagle and the girls in 
their warm capotes breasted with me the coldest 
winter days. She was as happy as they were; her 
cheeks tingled as pink as theirs. Sometimes I 
thought her eyes must answer me with her old 
self-command; their bright grayness was so nat- 
ural. 

I believed if her delusions were humored, they 
would unwind from her like the cloud which she 
felt them to be. The family had long fallen into the 
habit of treating her as a child, playing some imagi- 
nary character. She seemed less demented than 


Iv AZ ARRK 


373 


walking in a dream, her faculties asleep. It was 
somnambulism rather than madness. She had not 
the expression of insane people, the shifty eyes, 
the cunning and perverseness, the animal and tor- 
pid presence. 

If I called her Madame de Ferrier instead of my 
Cloud-Mother, a strained and puzzled look replaced 
her usual satisfaction. I did not often use the name, 
nor did I try to make her repeat my own. It was 
my daily effort to fall in with her happiness^ for if 
she saw any anxiety she was quick to plead: 

“Don’t you like me any more, Paul? Are you 
tired of me, because I am a Cloud-Mother?” 

“No,” I would answer. “Lazarre will never be 
tired of you.” 

“Do you think I am growing smaller? Will you 
love me if I shrink to a baby?” 

“I will love you.” 

“I used to love you when you were so tiny, Paul, 
before you knew how to love me back. If I forget 
how”— she clutched the lapels of my coat— “will 
you leave me then?” 

“Eagle, say this: ‘Lazarre cannot leave me.’” 

“Lazarre cannot leave me.” 

I heard her repeating this at her sewing. She 
boasted to Marie Grignon— “Lazarre cannot leave 
me! — Paul taught me that.” 

My Cloud-Mother asked me to tell her the 
stories she used to tell me. She had forgotten 
them. 


374 


IvAZ ARRB 


“I am the child now/’ she would say. *'Tell me 
the stories.” 

I repeated mythical tribe legends, gathered from 
Skenedonk on our long rides, making them as elo- 
quent as I could. She listened, holding her breath, 
or sighing with contentment. 

If any one in the household smiled when she led 
me about by the hand, there was a tear behind the 
smile. 

She kept herself in perfection, bestowing un- 
ceasing care upon her dress, which was always 
gray. 

“I have to wear gray; I am in a cloud,” she had 
said to the family. 

“We have taken things which belonged to my 
mother,” Katarina told me, “and Mother Ursule 
lets the Pawnees dye them with vegetable colors. 
By some mixture which is their own secret, they 
turn the cloth gray.” 

Eagle watched me with maternal care. If a hair 
dropped on my collar she brushed it away, and 
smoothed and settled my cravat. The touch of my 
Cloud-Mother, familiar and tender, like the touch 
of a wife, charged through me with torture, because 
she was herself so unconscious of it. 

Before I had been in the house a week she made 
a little pair of trousers a span long, and gave them 
to me. Marie and Katarina turned their faces to 
laugh. My Cloud-Mother held the garment up for 
their inspection, and was not at all sensitive to the 
giggles it provoked. 


Iv A Z A R R B 


375 

*'1 made over an old pair of his father’s,” she 
said. 

The discarded breeches used by the pouched tur- 
key had been devoted to her whim. Every stitch 
was neatly set. I praised her beautiful needlework, 
and she said she would make me a coat. 

Skenedonk was not often in the house. He took 
to the winter hunting and snow-shoeing with vigor. 
Whenever he came indoors I used to see him 
watching Madame de Ferrier with saturnine wist- 
fulness. She paid no attention to him. He would 
stand gazing at her while she sewed; being privi- 
leged as an educated Indian and my attendant, to 
enter the family room where the Pawnees came 
only to serve. They had the ample kitchen and its 
log fire to themselves. I wondered what was work- 
ing in Skenedonk’s mind, and if he repented call- 
ing one so buffeted, a sorceress. 

Kindly ridicule excited by the incongruous 
things she did, passed over without touching her. 
She was enveloped in a cloud, a thick case guarding 
overtaxed mind and body, and shutting them in its 
pellucid chrysalis. The Almighty arms were rest- 
ing her on a mountain of vision. She had forgot 
how to weep. She was remembering how to laugh. 

The more I thought about it the less endurable 
it became to have her dependent upon the Grig- 
nons. My business affairs with Pierre Grignon 
made it possible to transfer her obligations to my 
account. The hospitable man and his wife objected, 
but when they saw how I took it to heart, gave me 


376 


Iv AZ ARRE 


my way. I told them I wished her to be regarded 
as my wife, for I should never have another; and 
while it might remain impossible for her to marry 
me, on my part I was bound to her. 

“You are young, M’s’r Williams,” said Madame 
Ursule. “You have a long life before you. A man 
wants comfort in his house. And if he makes 
wealth, he needs a hand that knows how to dis- 
tribute and how to save. She could never go to 
your home as she is.” 

“I know it, madame.” 

“You will change your mind about a wife.” 

“Madame, I have not changed my mind since I 
first wanted her. It is not a mind that changes.” 

“Well, that’s unusual. Young men are often 
fickle. You never made proposals for her?” 

“I did, madame, after her husband died.” 

'‘But she was still a wife — the wife of an old man 
— in the Pigeon Roost settlement.” 

“Her father married her to a cousin nearly as 
old as himself, when she was a child. Her hus- 
band was reported dead while he was in hiding. She 
herself thought, and so did her friends, that he was 
dead.” 

“I see. Eh! these girls married to old men! 
Madame Jordan told me Madeleine’s husband was 
very fretful. He kept himself like silk, and scarcely 
let the wind blow upon him for fear of injuring his 
health. When other men were out toiling at the 
clearings, he sat in his house to avoid getting chills 
and fever in the sun. It was well for her that she 


Iv A ^ A R R B 


377 


had a faithful servant. Madeleine and the servant 
kept the family with their garden and corn field. 
They never tasted wild meat unless the other set- 
tlers brought them venison. Madame Jordan said 
they always returned a present of herbs and vege- 
tables from their garden. It grew for them better 
than any other garden in the settlement. Once the 
old man did go out with a hunting party, and got 
lost. The men searched for him three days, and 
found him curled up in a hollow tree, waiting to be 
brought in. They carried him home on a litter and 
he popped his head into the door and said: 'Here 
I am, child! You can’t kill me!’ ” 

“What did Madame de Ferrier say?” 

“Nothing. She made a child of him, as if he were 
her son. He was in his second childhood, no 
doubt. And Madame Jordan said she appeared to 
hold herself accountable for the losses and crosses 
that made him so fretful. The children of the emi- 
gration were brought up to hardship, and accepted 
everything as their elders could not do.” 

“I thought the Marquis de Ferrier a courteous 
gentleman.” 

“Did you ever see him?” 

“Twice only.” 

“He used to tell his wife he intended to live a 
hundred years. And I suppose he would have done 
it, if he had not been tomahawked and scalped. 
'You’ll never get De Chaumont,’ he used to say to 
her. 'I’ll see that he never gets you!’ I remember 
the name very well, because it was the name of that 


378 


Iv ARRH 


pretty creature who danced for us in the cabin on 
Lake George.” 

“De Chaumont was her father/’ I said. “He 
would have married Madame de Ferrier, and re- 
stored her estate, if she had accepted him, and the 
marquis had not come back.” 

“Saints have pity!” said Madame Ursule. “And 
the poor old man must make everybody and himself 
so uncomfortable I” 

“But how could he help living?” 

“True enough. God’s times are not ours. But 
see what he has made of her!” 

I thought of my Cloud-Mother walking enclosed 
from the world upon a height of changeless youth. 
She could not feel another shock. She was past 
both ambition and poverty. If she had ever felt the 
sweet anguish of love — Oh! she must have under- 
stood when she kissed me and said: “I will come 
to you sometime!” — the anguish — the hoping, wait- 
ing, expecting, receiving nothing, all were gone by. 
Even mother cares no longer touched her. Paul 
was grown. She could not be made anything that 
was base. Unseen forces had worked with her and 
would work with her still. 

“You told me,” I said to Madame Ursule, “the 
Indians were afraid of her when they burned the 
settlement. Was the change so sudden?” 

“Madame Jordan’s story was like this: It hap- 
pened in broad daylight. Two men went into the 
woods hunting bee trees. The Indians caught and 
killed them within two miles of the clearing — some 


Iv AZ ARRB 


379 


of those very Winnebagoes you treated with for 
your land. It was a sunshiny day in September. 
You could hear the poultry crowing, and the chil- 
dren playing in the dooryards. Madeleine’s little 
Paul was never far away from her. The Indians 
rushed in with yells and finished the settlement in 
a few minutes. Madame Jordan and her family 
were protected, but she saw children dashed against 
trees, and her neighbors struck down and scalped 
before she could plead for them. And little good 
pleading would have done. An Indian seized Paul. 
His father and the old servant lay dead across the 
doorstep. His mother would not let him go. The 
Indian dragged her on her knees and struck her on 
the head. Madame Jordan ran out at the risk of 
being scalped herself, and got the poor girl into her 
cabin. The Indian came back for Madeleine’s scalp. 
Madeleine did not see him. She never seemed to 
notice anybody again. She stood up quivering the 
whole length of her body, and laughed in his face. 
It was dreadful to hear her above the cries of the 
children. The Indian went away like a scared 
hound. And none of the others would touch her.” 

After I heard this story I was thankful every 
day that Eagle could not remember; that natural 
happiness had its way with her elastic body. 

Madame Ursule told me the family learned to 
give her liberty. She rowed alone upon the river, 
and went where she pleased. The men in La Baye 
would step aside for her. Strangers disturbed her 


38 o 


Iv A Z A R R H 


by bringing the consciousness of something un- 
usual. 

Once I surprised Marie and Katarina sitting 
close to the fire at twilight, talking about lovers. 
Eagle was near them on a stool. 

‘That girl,” exclaimed Katarina, speaking of the 
absent with strong disapproval, “is one of the kind 
that will let another girl take her sweetheart and 
then sit around and look injured! Now if she could 
get him from me she might have him! But she’d 
have to get him first!” 

Eagle listened in the attitude of a young sister, 
giving me to understand by a look that wisdom 
flowed, and she was learning. 

We rose one morning to find the world buried in 
snow. The river was frozen and its channel padded 
thick. As for the bay, stretches of snow fields, with 
dark pools and broken gray ridges met ice at the 
end of the world. 

It was so cold that paper stuck to the fingers like 
feathers, and the nails tingled with frost. The white 
earth creaked under foot, and when a sled went by 
the snow cried out in shrill long resistance, a spirit 
complaining of being trampled. Explosions came 
from the river, and elm limbs and timbers of the 
house startled us. White fur clothed the inner key 
holes. Tree trunks were black as ink against a 
background of snow. The oaks alone kept their 
dried foliage, which rattled like many skeletons, 
instead of rustling in its faded redness, because 
there was no life in it. 


ly AZ ARRB 


381 


But the colder it grew the higher Grignon’s log 
fires mounted. And when channels were cut in the 
snow both along the ridge above Green Bay, and 
across country in every direction, French trains 
moved out with jangling bells, and maids and men 
uttered voice sounds which spread as by miracle on 
the diffusing air from horizon to horizon. You could 
hear the officers speaking across the river; and 
dogs were like to shake the sky down with their 
barking. Echoes from the smallest noises were 
born in that magnified,- glaring world. 

The whole festive winter spun past. Marie and 
Katarina brought young men to the peaks of hope 
in the “twosing” seat, and plunged them down to 
despair, quite in the American fashion. Christmas 
and New Year’s days were great festivals, when 
the settlement ate and drank at Pierre Grignon’s 
expense, and made him glad as if he fathered the 
whole post. Madame Grignon spun and looked 
to the house. And a thousand changes passed 
over the landscape. But in all that time no one 
could see any change in my Cloud-Mother. She 
sewed like a child. She laughed, and danced ga- 
vottes. She trod the snow, or muffled in robes, 
with Madame Ursule and the girls, flew over it in 
a French train; a sliding box with two or three 
horses hitched tandem. Every evening I sat by her 
side at the fire, while she made little coats and 
trousers for me. But remembrance never came 
into her eyes. The cloud stood round about her as 
it did when I first tried to penetrate it. 


382 


Iv AZ ARRB 


My own dim days were often in mind. I tried 
to recall sensations. But I had lived a purely 
physical life. Her blunders of judgment and de- 
lusion of bodily shrinking were no part of my ex- 
perience. The thinking self in me had been par- 
alyzed. While the thinking self in her was alive, 
in a cloud. Both of us were memoryless, excepting 
her recollection of Paul. 

After March sent the ice out of river and bay, 
spring came with a rush as it comes in the north. 
Perhaps many days it was silently rising from tree 
roots. In February we used to say: — “This air is 
like spring.” But after such bold speech the arctic 
region descended upon us again, and we were 
snowed in to the ears. Yet when the end of March 
unlocked us, it seemed we must wait for the month 
of Mary to give us soft air and blue water. Then 
suddenly it was spring, and every living soul knew 
it. Life revived with passion. Longings which you 
had forgotten came and took you by the throat, 
saying, “You shall no longer be satisfied with nega- 
tive peace. Rouse, and live!” Then flitting, ex- 
quisite, purple flaws struck across milk-opal water 
in the bay. Fishing boats lifted themselves in 
mirage, sailing lightly above the water; and islands 
sat high, with a cushion of air under them. 

The girls manifested increasing interest in what 
they called the Pigeon Roost settlement affair. 
Madame Ursule had no doubt told them what I 
said. They pitied my Cloud-Mother and me with 


Iv AZ ARRE: 


383 

the condescending pity of the very young, and 
unguardedly talked where they could be heard. 

“Oh, she’ll come to her senses some time, and 
he’ll marry her of course,” was the conclusion they 
invariably reached; for the thing must turn out 
well to meet their approval. How could they fore- 
see what was to happen to people whose lives held 
such contrasts? 

“Father Pierre says he’s nearly twenty-eight; I 
call him an old bachelor,” declared Katarina; “and 
she was a married woman. They are really very 
old to be in love.” 

“You don’t know what you’ll do when you are 
old,” said Marie. 

“Ah, I dread it,” groaned Katarina. 

“So do I.” 

“But there is grandmother. She doesn’t mind it. 
And beaux never trouble her now.” 

“No,” sighed the other. “Beaux never trouble 
her now.” 

Those spring days I was wild with restlessness. 
Life revived to dare things. We heard afterwards 
that about that time the meteor rushed once more 
across France. Napoleon landed at a Mediterra- 
nean port, gathering force as he marched, swept 
Louis XVIII away like a cobweb in his path, and 
moved on to Waterloo. The greatest Frenchman 
that ever lived fell ultimately as low as St. Helena, 
and the Bourbons sat again upon the throne. But 
the changes of which I knew nothing affected me 
in the Illinois Territory. 


384 


LAZ ARRE 


Sometimes I waked at night and sat up in bed, 
hot with indignation at the injustice done me, 
which I could never prove, which I did not care to 
combat, yet which unreasonably waked the fight- 
ing spirit in me. Our natures toss and change, 
expand or contract, influenced by invisible powers 
we know not why. 

One April night I sat up in the veiled light made 
by a clouded moon. Rain points multiplied them- 
selves on the window glass; I heard their sting. 
The impulse to go out and ride the wind, or pick 
the river up and empty it all at once into the bay, 
or tear Eagle out of the cloud, or go to France 
and proclaim myself with myself for follower; and 
other feats of like nature, being particularly strong 
in me, I struck the pillow beside me with my fist. 
Something bounced from it on the floor with a 
clack like wood. I stretched downward from one 
of Madame Ursule’s thick feather beds, and picked 
up what brought me to my feet. Without letting 
go of it I lighted my candle. It was the padlocked 
book which Skenedonk said he had burned. 

And there the scoundrel lay at the other side of 
the room, wrapped in his blanket from head to 
foot, mummied by sleep. I wanted to take him by 
the scalp lock and drag him around on the floor. 

He had carried it with him, or secreted it some- 
where, month after month. I could imagine how 
the state of the writer worked on his Indian mind. 
He repented, and was not able to face me, but felt 
obliged to restore what he had withheld. So wait- 


Iv AZ ARRB 


385 


ing until I slept, he brought forth the padlocked 
book and laid it on the pillow beside my head; 
thus beseeching pardon, and intimating that the 
subject was closed between us. 

I got my key, and then a fit of shivering seized 
me. I put the candle stand beside the pillow and 
lay wrapped in bedding, clenching the small chilly 
padlock and sharp-cornered boards. Remember- 
ing the change which had come upon the life re- 
corded in it, I hesitated. Remembering how it had 
eluded me before, I opened it. 

The few entries were made without date. The 
first pages were torn out, crumpled, and smoothed 
and pasted to place again. Rose petals and violets 
and some bright poppy leaves, crushed inside its 
lids, slid down upon the bedcover. 


VIII 


THE PADLOCKED BOOK 

I N THIS book I am going to write you, Louis, 
a letter which will never be delivered; because 
I shall burn it when it is finished. Yet that will 
not prevent my tantalizing you about it. To the 
padlocked book I can say what I want to say. To 
you I must say what is expedient. 

That is a foolish woman who does violence to 
love by inordinate loving. Yet first I will tell you 
that I sink to sleep saying, “He loves me!’^ and 
rise to the surface saying, “He loves me!” and sink 
again saying, “He loves me!” all night long. 

The days when I see you are real days, finished 
and perfect, and this is the best of them all. God 
forever bless in paradise your mother for bearing 
you. If you never had come to the world I should 
not have waked to life myself. And why this is I 
cannot tell. The first time I ever saw your tawny 
head and tawny eyes, though you did not notice 
me, I said, “Whether he is the king or not would 
make no difference.” Because I knew you were 
more than the king to me. 

Sire, you told me once you could not understand 
why people took kindly to you. There is in you 
a gentle dignity and manhood, most royal. As 
you come into a room you cast your eyes about 
386 


Iv AZ ARRB 


387 


unfearing. Your head and shoulders are erect. 
You are like a lion in suppleness and tawny color, 
which influences me against my will. You inspire 
confidence. Even girls like Annabel, who feel 
merely at their finger ends, and are as well satisfied 
with one husband as another, know you to be solid 
man, not the mere image of a man. Besides these 
traits there is a power going out from you that 
takes hold of people invisibly. My father told me 
there was a man at the court of your father who 
could put others to sleep by a waving of his hands. 
I am not comparing you to this charlatan ; yet when 
you touch my hand a strange current runs through 
me. 

When we were in Paris I used to dress myself 
every morning like a priestess going to serve in a 
temple. And what was it for? To worship one 
dear head for half an hour perhaps. 

You robbed me of the sight of you for two 
months. 

Sophie Saint-Michel told me to beware of loving 
a man. To-day he says, “I love you! I need you! 
I shall go to the devil without you!” To-morrow 
he turns to his affairs. In six months he says, 'T 
was a fool!” Next year he says, “Who was it that 
drove me wild for a time last year? What was her 
name?” 

Is love a game where men and women try to 
outwit each other, and man boasts, “She loves me” 
— not ‘T love her?” 


388 


Iv ARRK 


You are two persons. Lazarre belongs to me. 
He follows, he thinks about me. He used to slip 
past my windows at Lake George, and cast his eyes 
up at the panes. But Louis is my sovereign. He 
sees and thinks and acts without me, and his lot 
is apart from mine. 

We are in a ship going to the side of the world 
where you are. Except that we are going towards 
you, it is like being pushed off a cliff. All my faith 
in the appearances of things is at an end. I have 
been juggled with. I have misjudged. 

I could have insisted that we hold Mont-Louis 
as tenants. The count is our friend. It is not a 
strong man’s fault that a weak man is weak and 
unfortunate. Yet seeing Cousin Philippe wince, 
I could not put the daily humiliation upon him. 
He is like my father come back, broken, helpless. 
And Paul and I, who are young, must take care 
of him where he will be least humbled. 

I was over-pampered in Mont-Louis and Paris. 
I like easy living, carriages, long-tailed gowns, 
jewels, trained servants, music, and spectacles on 
the stage; a park and wide lands all my own; se- 
clusion from people who do not interest me; idle- 
ness in enjoyment. 

I am the devil of vanity. Annabel has not half 
the points I have. When the men are around her I 
laugh to think I shall be fine and firm as a statue 
when she is a mass of wrinkles and a wisp of fuzz. 
When she is a mass of wrinkles and a wisp of fuzz 


Iv AZ ARRB 


389 


she will be riper and tenderer inside. But will the 
men see that? No. They will be off after a fresher 
Annabel. So much for men. On the other hand, 
I had but a few months of luxury, and may count 
on the hardness that comes of endurance; for I 
was an exile from childhood. There is strength in 
doing the right thing. If there were no God, if 
Christ had never died on the cross, I should have to 
do the right thing because it is right. 

Why should we lay up grievances against one 
another? They must disappear, and they only 
burn our hearts. 

Sometimes I put my arms around Ernestine, and 
rest her old head against me. She revolts. People 
incline to doubt the superiority of a person who 
will associate with them. But the closer our pov- 
erty rubs us the more Ernestine insists upon class 
differences. 

There should be a colossal mother going about 
the world to turn men over her lap and give them 
the slipper. They pine for it. 

Am I helping forward the general good, or am I 
only suffering Nature’s punishment? 

A woman can fasten the bonds of habit on a man, 
giving him food from her table, hourly strengthen- 
ing his care for her. By merely putting herself 
before him every day she makes him think of her. 


390 


Iv A Z A R R B 


What chance has an exiled woman against the fear- 
ful odds of daily life? 

Yet sometimes I think I can wait a thousand 
years. In sun and snow, in wind and dust, a 
woman waits. If she stretched her hand and said 
^'Come/’ who could despise her so much as she 
would despise herself? 

What is so cruel as a man? Hour after hour, 
day after day, year after year, he presses the iron 
spike of silence in. 

Coward! — to let me suffer such anguish! 

Is it because I kissed you? That was the highest 
act of my life! I groped down the black stairs of 
the Tuileries blinded by light. Why are the nat- 
ural things called wrong, and the unnatural ones 
just? 

Is it because I said I would come to you some- 
time? This is what I meant: that it should give 
me no jealous pang to think of another woman’s 
head on your breast; that there is a wedlock which 
appearances cannot touch. 

No, I never would — I never would seek you; 
though sometimes the horror of doing without you. 
turns into reproach. What is he doing? He may 
need me — and I am letting his life slip away. Am 
I cheating us both of what could have harmed no 
one? 

It is not that usage is broken off. 

Yet if you were to come, I would punish you for 
coming! 


AZ ARRE 


391 


Fine heroic days I tell myself we are marching 
to meet each other. If the day has been partic- 
ularly hard, I say, 'Terhaps I have carried his load 
too, and he marches lighter.’’ 

You have faults, no doubt, but the only one I 
could not pardon would be your saying, “I repent!” 

The instinct to conceal defeat and pain is so 
strong in me that I would have my heart cut out 
rather than own it ached. Yet many women carry 
all before them by a little judicious whining and 
rebellion. 

I never believe in your unfaith. If you brought 
a wife and showed her to me I should be sorry for 
her, and still not believe in your unfaith. 

Louis, I have been falling down flat and crawling 
the ground. Now I am up again. It didn’t hurt. 

It is the old German fairy story. Every day gold 
must be spun out of straw. How big the pile of 
straw looks every morning, and how little the hand- 
ful of gold every night ! 

This prairie in the Indiana Territory that I 
dreaded as a black gulf, is a grassy valley. 

I love the g,arden; and I love to hoe the Indian 
corn. It springs so clean from the sod, and is a 
miracle of growth. After the stalks are around 
my knees, they are soon around my shoulders. The 
broad leaves have a fragrance, and the silk is sweet 
as violets. 


392 




We wash our clothes in the river. Women who 
hoe corn, dig in a garden, and wash clothes, earn 
the wholesome bread of life. 

To-day Paul brought the first bluebells of spring, 
and put them in water for me. They were buds; 
and when they bloomed out he said, ‘‘God has 
blessed these flowers.” 

We have to nurse the sick. The goodness of 
these pioneer women is unfailing. It is like the 
great and kind friendship of the Du Chaumonts. 
They help me take care of Cousin Philippe. 

Paul meditated to-day, “I don’t want to hurt the 
Father’s feelings. I don’t want to say He was 
greedy and made a better place for Himself in 
heaven than He made for us down here. Is it nicer 
just because He is there?” 

His prayer: “God bless my father and mother 
and Ernestine. God keep my father and mother 
and Ernestine. And keep my mother with me day 
and night, dressed and undressed! God keep to- 
gether all that love each other.” 

When he is a man I am going to tell him, and 
say: “But I have built my house, not wrecked it. 
I have been yours, not love’s.” 

He tells me such stories as this: “Once upon a 
time there was such a loving angel came down. 
And they ran a string through his stomach and 
hung him on the wall. He never whined a bit.” 


Iv AZ ARRK 


393 


The people in this country, which is called free, 
are nearly all bound. Those who lack money like 
we do cannot go where they please, or live as they 
would live. Is that freedom? 

On a cool autumn night, when the fire crackles, 
the ten children of the settlement, fighting or agree- 
ing, come running from their houses like hens. We 
sit on the floor in front of the hearth, and I suffer 
the often-repeated martyrdom of the “Fire Pig.” 
This tale, invented once as fast as I could talk, I 
have been doomed to repeat until I dread the 
shades of evening. 

The children bunch their heads together; their 
lips part, as soon as I begin to say: 

Do you see that glowing spot in the heart of the 
coals? That is the house of the Fire Pig. One day 
the Fire Pig found he had no more corn, and he was 
very hungry. So he jumped out of his house and 
ran down the road till he came to a farmer’s field. 

“Good morning, Mr. Farmer,” said the little pig. 
“Have you any corn for me to-day?” 

“Why, who are you?” said the farmer. 

“I’m a little Fire Pig.” 

“No, I haven’t any corn for a Fire Pig.” 

The pig ran on till he came to another farmer’s 
field. 

“Good morning, Mr. Farmer, have you any corn 
for me to-day?” 

“Who are you?” said the farmer. 

“Oh, Pm the little Fire Pig.” 


394 


Iv AZ ARRK 


don’t know,” said the farmer. would give 
you a great bagful if you could kill the snake which 
comes every night and steals my cattle.” 

The pig thought, '‘How can I kill that snake?” 
but he was so hungry he knew he should starve 
without corn, so he said he would try. The farmer 
told him to go down in the field, where the snake 
came gliding at night with its head reared high 
in air. The pig went down in the meadow, and the 
first creature he saw was a sheep. 

“Baa!” said the sheep. That was its way of say- 
ing “How do you do?” “Who are you?” 

“I’m the little Fire Pig.” 

“What are you doing here?” 

“I’ve come to kill the great snake that eats the 
farmer’s cattle.” 

“I’m very glad,” said the sheep, “for it takes my 
lambs. How are you going to kill it?” 

“I don’t know,” said the pig; “can’t you help 
me?” 

“I’ll give you some of my wool.” 

The pig thanked the sheep, and went a little 
farther and met a horse. “He-ee-ee!” said the 
horse. That was his way of saying “How do you 
do?” “Who are you?” 

“I am the little Fire Pig.” 

“What are you doing here?” 

“I’ve come to kill the great snake that eats the 
farmer’s cattle.” 

“I’m glad of that,” said the horse; “for it steals 
my colts. How are you going to do it?” 


Iv A Z A R R E 


395 

don’t know,” said the pig. ^^Can’t you help 

me?” 

‘^ril give you some of the long hairs from my 
tail,” said the horse. 

The pig took them and thanked the horse. And 
when he went a little farther he met a cow. 

‘‘Moo!” said the cow. That was her way of say- 
ing “How do you do?” “Who are you?” 

“Fm the little Fire Pig.” 

“What are you doing here?” 

“I’ve come to kill the great snake that eats the 
farmer’s cattle.” 

“I am glad of that, for it steals my calves. How 
are you going to do it?” 

“I don’t know. Can’t you help me?” 

“I’ll give you one of* my sharp horns,” said the 
cow. 

So the pig took it and thanked her. Then he 
spun and he twisted, and he spun and he twisted, 
and made a strong woolen cord of the sheep’s wool. 
And he wove and he braided, and he wove and he 
braided, and made a cunning snare of the horse’s 
tail. And he whetted and sharpened, and he 
whetted and sharpened, and made a keen dart of the 
cow’s horn. 

Now when the little pig has all 

his materials ready, and sees the great snake come 
gliding, gliding — I turn the situation over to the 
children. What did he do with the rope, the snare 
and the horn? They work it out each in his own 


396 


IvAZ ARRB 


way. There is a mighty wrangling all around the 
hearth. 

One day is never really like another, though it 
seems so. 

Perhaps being used to the sight of the Iroquois 
at Lake George, makes it impossible for me to 
imagine what the settlers dread, and that is an 
attack. We are shut around by forests. In primi- 
tive life so much time and strength go to the getting 
of food that we can think of little else. 

It is as bad to slave at work as to slave at pleas- 
ure. But God may forgive what people cannot 
help. 

There is a very old woman among the settlers 
whom they call Granny. We often sit together. 
She cannot get a gourd edge betwixt her nose and 
chin when she drinks, and has forgotten she ever 
had teeth. She does not expect much; but there 
is one right she contends for, and that is the right 
of ironing her cap by stretching it over her knee. 
When I have lived in this settlement long enough, 
my nose and chin may come together, and I shall 
forget my teeth. But this much I will exact of 
fate. My cap shall be ironed. I will not — I will 
not iron it by stretching it over my knee! 

Count du Chaumont would be angry if he saw 
me learning to weave, for instance. You would not 


Iv AZ ARRB 


397 


be angry. That makes a difference between you 
as men which I feel but cannot explain. 

We speak English with our neighbors. Paul, 
who is to be an American, must learn his language 
well. I have taught him to read and write. I have 
taught him the history of his family and of his 
father’s country. His head is as high as my breast. 
When will my head be as high as his breast? 

Skenedonk loves you as a young superior broth- 
er. I have often wondered what he thought about 
when he went quietly around at your heels. You 
told me he had killed and scalped, and in spite of 
education, was as ready to kill and scalp again as 
any white man is for war. 

I dread him like a toad, and wish him to keep 
on his side of the walk. He is always with you, and 
no doubt silently urges, “Come back to the wig- 
wams that nourished you!” 

Am I mistaken? Are we moving farther and 
farther apart instead of approaching each other? 
Oh, Louis, does this road lead to nothing? 

I am glad I gave you that key. It was given 
thoughtlessly, when I was in a bubble of joy. But 
if you have kept it, it speaks to you every day. 

Sophie Saint-Michel told me man sometimes 
piles all his tokens in a retrospective heap, and 
says, “Who the deuce gave me this or that?” 

Sophie’s father used to be so enraged at his wife 
and daughter because he could not restore their 


398 


LA.Z ARRE 


lost comforts. But this is really a better disposi- 
tion than a mean subservience to misfortune. 

The children love to have me dance gavottes for 
them. Some of their mothers consider it levity. 
Still they feel the need of a little levity themselves. 

.We had a great festival when the wild roses were 
fully in bloom. The prairie is called a mile square, 
and wherever a plow has not struck, acres of wild 
roses grow. They hedge us from the woods like 
a parapet edging a court. These volunteers are 
very thorny, bearing tender claws to protect them- 
selves with. But I am nimble with my scissors. 

We took the Jordan oxen, a meek pair that have 
broken sod for the colony, and twined them with 
garlands of wild roses. Around and around their 
horns, and around and around their bodies the long 
ropes were wound, their master standing by with 
his goad. That we wound also, and covered his 
hat with roses. The huge oxen swayed aside, look- 
ing ashamed of themselves. And when their tails 
were ornamented with a bunch at the tip, they 
switched these pathetically. Still even an ox loves 
festivity, whether he owns to it or not. We made a 
procession, child behind child, each bearing on his 
head all the roses he could carry, the two oxen 
walking tandem, led by their master in front. 
Everybody came out and laughed. It was a beauti- 
ful sight, and cheered us, though we gave it no 
name except the Procession of Roses. 


Often when I open my eyes at dawn I hear music 


RRB 


399 


far off that makes my heart swell. It is the waking 
dream of a king marching with drums and bugles. 
While I am dressing I hum, ''Oh, Richard, O my 
king!’’ 

Louis! Louis! Louis! 

I cannot — I cannot keep it down! How can I 
hold still that righteousness may be done through 
me, when I love — love — love — ^when I clench my 
fists and walk on my knees — 

I am a wicked woman! What is all this sweet 
pretense of duty! It covers the hypocrite that 
loves — that starves — that cries. My king! — my 
king! 

Strike me! — drive me within bounds! This long 
repression — years, years of waiting — for what? — 
for more waiting! — it is driving me mad! 

You have the key. 

I have nothing! 


IX 


M y GOD! What had she seen in me to 
love? I sat up and held the book against 
my bosom. Its cry out of her past filled the 
world from horizon to horizon. The ox that 
she had wreathed in roses would have heard it 
through her silence. But the brutal, slow Bourbon 
had gone his way, turning his stupid head from 
side to side, leaving her to perish. 

Punctuated by years, bursting from eternities of 
suppression, it brought an accumulated force that 
swept the soul out of my body. 

All that had not been written in the book was as 
easily read as what was set down. I saw the monot- 
ony of her life, and her gilding of its rudeness, the 
pastimes she thought out for children; I saw her 
nursing the helplessness which leaned upon her, and 
turning aside the contempt of pioneer women who 
passionately admired strong men. I saw her eyes 
waiting on the distant laggard who stupidly pursued 
his own affairs until it was too late to protect her. I 
read the entries over and over. When day broke it 
seemed to me the morning after my own death, such 
knowing and experiencing had passed through me. 
I could not see her again until I had command of 
myself. 

So I dressed and went silently down stairs. The 
400 


1/ AZ ARRB 


401 


Pawnees were stirring in the kitchen. I got some 
bread and meat from them, and also some grain 
for the horse; then mounted and rode to the river. 

The ferryman lived near the old stockade. Some 
time always passed after he saw the signals before 
the deliberate Frenchman responded. I led my 
horse upon the unwieldly craft propelled by two 
huge oars, which the ferryman managed, running 
from one to another according to the swing of the 
current. It was broad day when we reached the 
other shore; one of those days, gray overhead, 
when moisture breaks upward through the ground, 
instead of descending. Many light clouds flitted 
under the grayness. The grass showed with a kind 
of green blush through its old brown fleece. 

I saw the first sailing vessel of spring coming to 
anchor, from the straits of the great lakes. Once 
I would have hailed that vessel as possible bearer 
of news. Now it could bring me nothing of any 
importance. 

The trail along the Fox river led over rolling 
land, dipping into coves and rising over hills. The 
Fox, steel blue in the shade, becomes tawny as its 
namesake when its fur of rough waves is combed 
to redness in the sunlight. Under grayness, with 
a soft wind blowing, the Fox showed his blue coat. 

The prospect was so large, with a ridge running 
along in the distance, and open country spreading 
away on the other side, that I often turned in my 
saddle and looked back over the half-wooded trail. 
I thought I saw a figure walking a long way behind 


402 


Iv AZ ARRK 


me, and being alone, tried to discern what it was. 
But under that gray sky nothing was sharply de- 
fined. I rode on thinking of the book in the breast 
of my coat. 

It was certain I was not to marry. And being 
without breakfast and unstimulated by the sky, I 
began to think also what unstable material I had 
taken in hand when I undertook to work with In- 
dians. Instinctively I knew then what a young 
southern statesman named Jefferson Davis whom I 
first met as a commandant of the fort at Green Bay 
— afterwards told me in Washington : ^‘No common- 
wealth in a republic will stand with interests apart 
from the federated whole.” White men, who have 
exclaimed from the beginning against the injustice 
done the red man, and who keep on pitying and 
exterminating him, made a federated whole with 
interests apart from his. 

Again when I looked back I saw the figure, but it 
was afoot, and I soon lost it in a cove. 

My house had been left undisturbed by hunters 
and Indians through the winter. I tied the horse to 
a gallery post and unfastened the door. A pile of 
refuse timbers offered wood for a fire, and I 
carried in several loads of it, and lighted the virgin 
chimney. Then I brought water from the spring 
and ate breakfast, sitting before the fire and think- 
ing a little wearily and -bitterly of my prospect in 
life. 

Having fed my horse, I covered the fire, leaving 
a good store of fuel by the hearth, and rode away 
toward the Menominee and Winnebago lands. 


Iv AZ ARRK 


403 


The day was a hard one, and when I came back 
towards nightfall I was glad to stop with the offi- 
cers of the stockade and share their mess. 

“You looked fagged,” said one of them. 

“The horse paths are heavy,” I answered, “and I 
have been as far as the Indian lands.” 

I had been as far as that remote time when Eagle 
was not a Cloud-Mother. To cross the river and 
see her smiling in meaningless happiness seemed 
more than I could do. 

Yet she might notice my absence. We had been 
housed together ever since she had discovered me. 
Our walks and rides, our fireside talks and evening 
diversions were never separate. At Pierre Grig- 
non's the family flocked in companies. When the 
padlocked book sent me out of the house I forgot 
that she was used to my presence and might be dis- 
turbed by an absence no one could explain. 

“The first sailing vessel is in from the straits,” 
said the lieutenant. 

“Yes, I saw her come to anchor as I rode out this 
morning.” 

“She brought a passenger.” 

“Anybody of importance?” 

“At first blush, no. At second blush, yes.” 

“Why W at first blush?” 

“Because he is only a priest.” 

“Only a priest, haughty officer! Are civilians 
and churchmen dirt under army feet?” 

The lieutenant grinned. 

“When you see a missionary priest landing to 


404 


Iv AZ ARRB 


confess a lot of Canadians, he doesn’t seem quite 
so important, as a prelate from Ghent, for instance.” 

‘‘Is this passenger a prelate from Ghent?” 

“That is where the second blush comes in. He 
is.” 

“How do you know?” 

“I saw him, and talked with him.” 

“What is he doing in Green Bay?” 

“Looking at the country. He was inquiring for 
you.” 

“For me!” 

“Yes.” 

“What could a prelate from Ghent want with 
me?” 

“Says he wants to make inquiries about the na- 
tive tribes.” 

“Oh! Did you recommend me as an expert in 
native tribes?” 

“Naturally. But not until he asked if you were 
here.” 

“He mentioned my name?” 

“Yes. He wanted to see you. You’ll not have 
to step out of your way to gratify him.” 

“From that I infer there is a new face at Pierre 
Grignon’s.” 

“Your inference is correct. The Grignons al- 
ways lodge the priests, and a great man like this one 
will be certainly quartered with them.” 

“What is he like?” 

“A smooth and easy gentleman.” 

“In a cassock?” 


Iv AZ ARRB 


405 


'Tell a poor post lieutenant what a cassock is.” 

"The long-skirted black coat reaching to the 
heels.” 

"Our missionary priests don’t wear it here. 
He has the bands and broad hat and general ap- 
pearance of a priest, but his coat isn’t very long.” 

"Then he has laid aside the cassock while travel- 
ing through this country.” 

The prelate from Ghent, no doubt a common 
priest, that the lieutenant undertook to dignify, 
slipped directly out of my mind. 

Madame Ursule was waiting for me, on the gal- 
lery with fluted pillars at the front of the house. 

"M’s’r Williams, where is Madeleine?” 

Her anxiety vibrated through the darkness. 

"Isn’t she here, madame ?” 

"She has not been seen to-day.” 

We stood in silence, then began to speak to- 
gether. 

"But, madame ” 

"M’s’r Williams ” 

"I went away early ” 

"When I heard from the Pawnees that you had 
gone off on horseback so early I thought it possible 
you might have taken her with you.” 

"Madame, how could I do that?” 

"Of course you wouldn’t have done that. But 
we can’t find her. We’ve inquired all over La 
Baye. She left the house when no one saw her. She 
was never out after nightfall before.” 

"But, madame, she must be here!” 


4o6 


Iv ARRK 


“Oh, m’s’r, my hope was that you knew where 
she is — she has followed you about so! The poor 
child may be at the bottom of the river!” 

“She can’t be at the bottom of the river!” I 
retorted. 

The girls ran out. They were dressed for a dance, 
and drew gauzy scarfs around their anxious faces. 
The house had been searched from ground to attic 
more than once. They were sure she must be hid- 
ing from them. 

I remembered the figure that appeared to me on 
the trail. My heart stopped. I could not humil- 
iate my Cloud-Mother by placing her before them 
in the act of tracking me like a dog. I could not 
tell any one about it, but asked for Skenedonk. 

The Indian had been out on the river in a canoe. 
He came silently, and stood near me. The book 
was between us. I had it in the breast of my coat, 
and he had it on his conscience. 

“Bring out your horse and get me a fresh one,” 
I said. 

“Where shall I find one?” 

“Pierre will give you one of ours,” said Madame 
Ursule. “But you must eat.” 

“I had my supper with the officers of the fort, 
madame. I would have made a briefer stay if I had 
known what had happened on this side of the 
river.” 

“I forgot to tell you, M’s’r Williams, there is an 
abbe here from Europe. He asked for you.” 

“I cannot see him to-night.” 


Iv AZ ARRE 


407 


Skenedonk drew near me to speak, but I was 
impatient of any delay. We went into the house, 
and Madame Ursule said she would bring a blanket 
and some food to strap behind my saddle. The girls 
helped her. There was a hush through the jolly 
house. The master bustled out of the family room. 
I saw behind him, standing as he had stood at Mit- 
tau, a priest of fine and sweet presence, waiting for 
Pierre Grignon to speak the words of introduction. 

“It is like seeing France again!” exclaimed the 
master of the house. “Abbe Edgeworth, this is 
M’sT Williams.” 

“Monsieur,” said the abbe to me with perfect 
courtesy, “believe me, I am glad to see you.” 

“Monsieur,” I answered, giving him as brief no- 
tice as he had given me in Mittau, yet without 
rancor; — there was no room in me for that. “You 
have unerringly found the best house in the Illinois 
Territory, and I leave you to the enjoyment of it.” 

“You are leaving the house, monsieur?” 

“I find I am obliged to make a short journey.” 

“I have made a long one, monsieur. It may 
be best to tell you that I come charged with a 
message for you.” 

I thought of Madame d’Angouleme. The sister 
who had been mine for a few minutes, and from 
whom this priest had cast me out, declaring that 
God had smitten the pretender when my eclipse laid 
me at his feet — remembered me in her second exile, 
perhaps believed in me still. Women put wonder- 
ful restraints upon themselves. 


4o8 


AZ ARRB 


Abbe Edgeworth and I looked steadily at each 
other. 

hope Madame d’Angoiileme is well?” 

“She is well, and is still the comforter of his 
Majesty’s misfortune.” 

“Monsieur the Abbe, a message would need to 
be very urgent to be listened to to-night. I will 
give you audience in the morning, or when I re- 
turn.” 

We both bowed again. I took Pierre Grignon 
into the hall for counsel. 

In the end he rode with me, for we concluded 
to send Skenedonk with a party along the east 
shore. 

Though searching for the lost is an experience 
old as the world, its poignancy was new to me. 
I saw Eagle tangled in the wild oats of the river. 
I saw her treacherously dealt with by Indians who 
called themselves at peace. I saw her wandering 
out and out, mile beyond mile, to undwelt-in places, 
and the tender mercy of wolves. 

We crossed the ferry and took to the trail, Pierre 
Grignon talking cheerfully. 

“Nothing has happened to her, M’s’r Williams,” 
he insisted. “No Indian about La Baye would hurt 
her, and the child is not so crazy as to hurt her- 
self.” 

It was a starless night, muffled overhead as the 
day had been, but without rain or mist. He had a 
lantern hanging to his saddle bow, ready to light. 
In the open lands we rode side by side, but through 


Iv AZ ARRK 


409 

growths along the Fox first one and then the other 
led the way. 

We found my door unfastened. I remembered 
for the first time I had not locked it. Some one 
had been in the house. A low fire burned in the 
chimney. We stirred it and lighted the lantern. 
Footprints not our own had dried white upon 
the smooth dark floor. 

They pointed to the fireplace and out again. 
They had been made by a woman’s feet. 

We descended the hill to the river, and tossed 
our light through every bush, the lantern blinking 
in the wind. We explored the ravine, the light 
stealing over white birches that glistened like ala- 
baster. It was no use to call her name. She 
might be hidden behind a rock laughing at us. We 
had to surprise her to recover her. Skenedonk 
would have traced her where we lost the trail. 

When we went back to the house, dejected with 
physical weariness, I unstrapped the blanket and 
the food which Madame Ursule had sent, and 
brought them to Pierre Grignon. He threw the 
blanket on the settee, laid out bread and meat on 
the table, and ate, both of us blaming ourselves for 
sending the Indian on the other side of the river. 

We traced the hard route which I had followed 
the day before, and reached Green Bay about dawn. 
Pierre Grignon went to bed exhausted. I had some 
breakfast and waited for Skenedonk. He had not 
returned, but had sent one man back to say there 
was no clue. The imeal was like a passover eaten 


410 


Iv AZ ARRK 


in haste. I could not wait^ but set out again, with 
a pillion which I had carried uselessly in the night 
strapped again upon the horse for her seat, in case 
I found her; and leaving word for the Oneida 
to follow. 

I had forgotten there was such a person as Abbe 
Edgeworth, when he led a horse upon the ferry 
boat. 

“You ride early as well as late. May I join you?” 

“I ride on a search which cannot interest you, 
monsieur.” 

“You are mistaken. I understand what has dis- 
turbed the house, and I want to ride with you.” 

“It will be hard for a horseman accustomed to 
avenues.” 

“It will suit me perfectly.” 

It did not suit me at all, but he took my coldness 
with entire courtesy. 

“Have you breakfasted, monsieur?” 

“I had my usual slice of bread and cup of water 
before rising,” he answered. 

Again I led on the weary trail to my house. Abbe 
Edgeworth galloped well, keeping beside me where 
there was room, or riding behind where there was 
not. The air blew soft, and great shadow clouds 
ran in an upper current across the deepest blueness 
I had seen in many a day. . The sun showed beyond 
rows of hills. 

I bethought myself to ask the priest if he knew 
anything about Count du Chaumont. He answered 
very simply and directly that he did; that I might 


Iv AZ ARRE 


411 

remember Count du Chaumont was mentioned in 
Mittau. The count, he said, according to common 
report, had retired with his daughter and his son- 
in-law to Blois, where he was vigorously rebuild- 
ing his ruined chateau of Chaumont. 

If my mind had been upon the priest, I should 
have wondered what he came for. He did not press 
his message. 

“The court is again in exile?” I said, when we 
could ride abreast. 

“At Ghent.” 

“Bellenger visited me last April. He was with- 
out a dauphin.” 

“We could supply the deficiency,” Abbe Edge- 
worth pleasantly replied. 

“With the boy he left in Europe?” 

“Oh, dear no. With royal dukes. You observed 
his majesty could not pension a helpless idiot with- 
out encouraging dauphins. These dauphins are 
thicker than blackberries. The dauphin myth has 
become so common that whenever we see a beg- 
gar approaching, we say. There comes another 
dauphin.’ One of them is a fellow who calls him- 
self the Duke of Richemont. He has followers who 
believe absolutely in him. Somebody, seeing him 
asleep, declared it was the face of the dead king!” 

I felt stung, remembering the Marquis du Ples- 
sy’s words. 

“Oh, yes, yes,” said Abbe Edgeworth. “He has 
visions too. Half memories, when the face of his 
mother comes back to him!” 


412 


Iv AZ ARRH 


“What about his scars?” I asked hardily. 

“Scars! yes, I am told he has the proper stig- 
mata of the dauphin. He was taken out of the 
Temple prison; a dying boy being substituted for 
him there. We all know the dauphin’s physician 
died suddenly; some say he was poisoned; and a 
new physician attended the boy who died in the 
Temple. Of course the priest who received the 
child’s confession should have known a dauphin 
when he saw one. But that’s neither here nor there. 
We lived then in surprising times.” 

“Madame d’Angouleme would recognize him as 
her brother if she saw him?” I suggested. 

“I think she is not so open to tokens as at one 
time. Women’s hearts are tender. The Duchess 
d’Angouleme could never be convinced that her 
brother died.” 

“But others, including her uncle, were con- 
vinced?” 

“The Duke of Richemont was not. What do you 
yourself think. Monsieur Williams?” 

“I think that the man who is out is an infinite 
joke. He tickles the whole world. People have a 
right to laugh at a man who cannot prove he is 
what he says he is. The difference between a pre- 
tender and a usurper is the difference between the 
top of the hill and the bottom.” 

The morning sun showed the white mortar ribs 
of my homestead clean and fair betwixt hewed 
logs; and brightened the inside of the entrance or 
hall room. For I saw the door stood open. It 


Iv AZ ARRE 


413 

had been left unfastened but not ajar. Somebody 
was in the house. 

I told Abbe Edgeworth we would dismount and 
tie our horses a little distance away. And I asked 
him to wait outside and let me enter alone. 

He obligingly sauntered on the hill overlooking 
the Fox; I stepped upon the gallery and looked in. 

The sweep of a gray dress showed in front of 
the settle. Eagle was there. I stood still. 

She had put on more wood. Fire crackled in the 
chimney. I saw, and seemed to have known all 
night, that she had taken pieces of unbroken bread 
and meat left by Pierre Grignon on my table; that 
her shoes were cleaned and drying in front of the 
fire; that she must have carried her dress above 
contact with the soft ground. 

When I asked Abbe Edgeworth not to come in, 
her dread of strangers influenced me less than a 
desire to protect her from his eyes, haggard and 
draggled as she probably was. The instinct which 
made her keep her body like a temple had not 
failed under the strong excitement that drove her 
out. Whether she slept under a bush, or not at all, 
or took to the house after Pierre Grignon and I left 
it, she was resting quietly on the settle before the 
fireplace, without a stain of mud upon her. 

I could see nothing but the foot of her dress. 
Had any change passed over her face? Or had 
the undisturbed smile of my Cloud-Mother fol- 
lowed me on the road? 

Perhaps the cloud had thickened. Perhaps thun- 


414 


Iv AZ AR RK 


ders and lightnings moved within it. Sane people 
sometimes turn wild after being lost, running from 
their friends, and fighting against being restrained 
and brought home. 

The gray dress in front of my hearth I could not 
see without a heaving of the breast. 


X. 


H ow a man’s life is drawn, turned, shaped, 
by a woman! He may deny it. He may 
swagger and lie about it. Heredity, ambition, 
lust, noble aspirations, weak self-indulgence, power, 
failure, success, have their turns with him. But 
the woman he desires above all others, whose breast 
is his true home, makes him, mars him. 

Had she cast herself on the settle exhausted and 
ill after exposure? Should I find her muttering and 
helpless? Worse than all, had the night made her 
forget that she was a Cloud-Mother? 

I drew my breath with an audible sound in the 
throat. Her dress stirred. She leaned around the 
edge of the settle. 

Eagle de Ferrier, not my Cloud-Mother, looked 
at me. Her features were pinched from exposure, 
but flooded themselves instantly with a blush. She 
snatched her shoes from the hearth and drew them 
on. 

I was taken with such a trembling that I held to 
a gallery post. 

Suppose this glimpse of herself had been given 
to me only to be withdrawn I I was afraid to speak, 
and waited. 

She stood up facing me. 

^‘Louis!” 


415 


4i6 


ARRK 


^‘Madame!” 

'‘What is the matter, sire ?” 

"Nothing, madame, nothing.” 

"Where is Paul?” 

I did not know what to do, and looked at hef 
completely helpless; for if I told her Paul was 
dead, she might relapse; and evasions must be 
temporary. 

"The Indian took him,” she cried. 

"But the Indian didn’t kill him. Eagle.” 

"How do you know?” 

"Because Paul came to me.” 

"He came to you? Where?” 

"At Fort Stephenson.” 

"Where is my child?” 

"He is at Fort Stephenson.” 

"Bring him to me!” 

"I can’t bring him. Eagle.” 

"Then let me go to him.” 

I did not know what to say to her. 

"And there were Cousin Philippe and Ernestine 
lying across the step. I have been thinking all 
night. Do you understand it?” 

"Yes, I understand it. Eagle.” 

By the time I had come into the house her mind 
leaped forward in comprehension. The blanket 
she had held on her shoulders fell around her feet. 
It was a striped gay Indian blanket. 

"You were attacked, and the settlement was 
burned.” 

"But whose house is this?” 


Iv AZ ARRB 


417 


“This is my house.” 

“Did you bring me to your house?” 

“I wasn’t there.” 

“No, I remember. You were not there. I saw 
you the last time at the Tuileries.” 

“When did you come to yourself, madame ?” 

“I have been sick, haven’t I? But I have been 
sitting by this fire nearly all night, trying to un- 
derstand. I knew I was alone, because Cousin 
Philippe and Ernestine — I want Paul!” 

I looked at the floor, and must have appeared 
miserable. She passed her hands back over her 
forehead many times as if brushing something 
away. “If he died, tell me.” 

“I held him. Eagle.” 

“They didn’t kill him?” 

“No.” 

“Or scalp him?” 

“The knife never touched him.” 

“But 

“It was in battle.” 

“My child died in battle? How long have I 
been ill?” 

“More than a year. Eagle.” 

“And he died in battle?” 

“He had a wound in his side. He was brought 
into the fort, and I took care of him.” 

She burst out weeping, and laughed and wept, 
the tears running down her face and wetting her 
bosom. 


4i8 


Iv AZ ARRB 


‘‘My boy! My little son! You held him! He 
died like a man!” 

I put her on the settle, and all the cloud left her 
in that tempest of rain. Afterwards I wiped her 
face with my handkerchief and she sat erect and 
still. 

A noise of many birds came from the ravine, and 
winged bodies darted past the door uttering the 
cries of spring. Abbe Edgeworth sauntered by 
and she saw him, and was startled. 

“Who is that?” 

“A priest.” 

“When did he come?” 

“He rode here with me this morning.” 

“Louis,” she asked, leaning back, “who took care 
of me?” 

“You have been with the Grignons since you 
came to the Illinois Territory.” 

“Am I in the Illinois Territory?” 

“Yes, I found you with the Grignons.” 

“They must be kind people!” 

“They are; the earth’s salt.” 

“But who brought me to the Illinois Territory?” 

^‘A family named Jordan.” 

“The Indians didn’t kill them?” 

“No.” 

“Why wasn’t I killed?” 

“The Indians regarded you with superstition.” 

“What have I said and done?” 

“Nothing, madame, that need give you any un- 
easiness.” 


Iv A z A R R B 


419 


*^But what did I say?’^ she insisted. 

‘'You thought you were a Cloud-Mother.’’ 

"A Cloud-Mother!” She was astonished and 
asked, "What is a Cloud-Mother?” 

"You thought I was Paul, and you were my 
Cloud-Mother.” 

"Did I say such a foolish thing as that?” 

"Don’t call it foolish, madame.” 

"I hope you will forget it.” 

"I don’t want to forget it.” 

"But why are you in Illinois Territory, sire?” 

"I came to find land for the Iroquois. I intend 
to make a state with the tribe.” 

"But what of France?” 

"Oh, France is over supplied with men who want 
to make a state of her. Louis XVIII has been on 
the throne eleven months, and was recently chased 
off by Napoleon. 

"Louis XVIII on the throne? Did true loyalists 
suffer that?” 

"Evidently.” 

"Sire, what became of Napoleon?” 

"He was beaten by the allies and sent to Elba. 
Louis XVIII was brought in with processions. But 
in about eleven months Napoleon made a dash 
across France — ” 

"Tell me slowly. You say I have been ill more 
than a year. I know nothing of what has hap- 
pened.” 

"Napoleon escaped from Elba, made a dash 
across France, and incidentally swept the Bourbon 


420 


AR RR 


off the throne. The last news from Europe shows 
him g'athering armies to meet the allies.’’ 

^^Oh, sire, you should have been there !” 

‘^Abbe Edgeworth suggests that France is well 
supplied with dauphins also. Turning off dauphins 
has been a pastime at court.” 

^‘Abbe Edgeworth? You do not mean the priest 
you saw at Mittau? 

“Confessor and almoner to his majesty. The 
same man.” 

“Is he here?” 

“You saw him pass the door.” 

“Why has he come to America?” 

“I have not inquired.” 

“Why is he here with you?” 

“Because it pleases him, not me.” 

“He brings you some message?” 

“So he says.” 

“What is it?” 

“I have not had time to ask.” 

She stood up. As she became more herself and 
the spirit rushed forward in her face, I saw how her 
beauty had ripened. Hoeing corn and washing in 
the river does not coarsen well-born women. I 
knew I should feel the sweetness of her presence 
stinging through me and following me wherever I 
went in the world. 

“Call the priest in, sire. I am afraid I have hin- 
dered the interview.” 

“I did not meet him with my arms open, Ma- 
dame.” 


Iv AZ AR RH 


421 


^^But you would have heard what he had to say^ 
if I had not been in your house. .Why am I in 
your house?” 

“You came here.” 

“Was I wandering about by myself?” 

“Yes, madame.” 

“I thought I must have been walking. When I 
came to myself I was so tired, and my shoes were 
muddy. If you want to see the priest I will go into 
another room.” 

“No, I will bring him in and let him give his mes- 
sage in your presence.” 

When Abbe Edgeworth was presented to her, 
he slightly raised his eyebrows, but expressed no 
astonishment at meeting her lucid eyes. Nor did 
I explain — “God has given her back her senses in 
a night.” 

The position in which she found herself was try- 
ing. She made him a grave courtesy. My house 
might have been the chateau in which she was born, 
so undisturbed was her manner. Her night wan- 
dering and mind-sickness were simply put behind 
us in the past, with her having taken refuge in my 
house, as matters which need not concern Abbe 
Edgeworth. He did not concern himself with them, 
but bent before her as if he had no doubt of her 
sanity. 

I asked her to resume her place on the settle. 
There was a stool for the abbe and one for myself. 
We could see the river glinting in its valley, and 
the windrows of heights beyond it. A wild bee 


422 


Iv AZ AR RK 


darted into the room, droning, and out again, the 
5un upon its back. 

^‘Monsieur,’’ I said to Abbe Edgeworth, “I am 
ready now to hear the message which you men- 
tioned to me last night/^ 

'‘If madame will pardon me,” he answered, "I 
will ask you to take me where we can confer alone.” 

"It is not necessary, monsieur. Madame de Per- 
rier knows my whole story.” 

But the priest moved his shoulders. 

"I followed you in this remote place, monsieur, 
that we might talk together without interruption, 
unembarrassed by any witness.” 

Madame de Perrier rose. I put her into her seat 
again with authority. 

"It is my wish, madame, to have at least one wit- 
ness with Abbe Edgeworth and myself.” 

"I hope,” he protested, "that madame will be- 
lieve there can be no objection to her presence. I 
am simply following instructions. I was instructed 
to deliver my message in private.” 

"Monsieur,” Eagle answered, "I would gladly 
withdraw to another room.” 

"I forbid it, madame,” I said to her. 

"Very well,” yielded Abbe Edgeworth. 

He took a folded paper from his bosom, and 
spoke to me with startling sharpness. 

"You think I should address you as Monseig- 
neur, as the dauphin of France should be ad- 
dressed?” 

"I do not press my rights. If I did, monsieur the 


Iv AZ ARRB 


423 

abbe, you would not have the right to sit in my 
presence.” 

''Suppose we humor your fancy. I will address 
you as Monseigneur. Let us even go a little farther 
and assume that you are known to be the dauphin 
of France by witnesses who have never lost track 
of you. In that case, Monseigneur, would you put 
your name to a paper resigning all claim upon the 
throne?” 

"Is this your message?” 

"We have not yet come to the message.” 

"Let us first come to the dauphin. When dauphins 
are as plentiful as blackberries in France and the 
court never sees a beggar appear without exclaim- 
ing: 'Here comes another dauphin!’ — why, may T 
ask, is Abbe Edgeworth sent so far to seek one?” 

He smiled. 

"We are supposing that Monseigneur, in whose 
presence I have the honor to be, is the true dau- 
phin.” 

"That being the case, how are we to account for 
the true dauphin’s reception at Mittau?” 

"The gross stupidity and many blunders of agents 
that the court was obliged to employ, need hardly 
be assumed.” 

"Poor Bellenger! He has to take abuse from 
both sides in order that we may be polite to each 
other.” 

"As Monseigneur suggests, we will not go into 
that matter.” 

Eagle sat as erect as a statue and as white. 


424 


Iv AZ ARRB 


I felt an instant’s anxiety. Yet she had herself 
entirely at comimand. 

“We have now arrived at the paper, I trust,” said 
the priest. 

“The message?” 

“Oh, no. The paper in which you resign all 
claim to the throne of France, and which may give 
you the price of a principality in this country.” 

“I do not sign any such paper.” 

“Not at all?” 

“Not at all.” 

“You are determined to holcf^to your rights?” 

“I am determined not to part with my rights.” 

“Inducements large enough might be offered.” 
He paused suggestively. 

“The only man in France,” I said, “empowered 
to treat for abdication of the throne at present, is 
Napoleon Bonaparte. Did you bring a message 
from him?” 

Abbe Edgeworth winced, but laughed. 

“Napoleon Bonaparte will not last. All Europe 
is against him. I see we have arrived at the mes- 
sage.” 

He^ rose and handed me the paper he held in his 
hand. I rose and received it, and read it standing. 

It was one brief line : — 

“Louis: You are recalled. 

Marie-Therese.” 


The blood must have rushed over my face. I 


Iv A Z A R R K 


425 

had a submerged feeling, looking out of it at the 
priest. 

‘‘Well, Monaeigneur?” 

“It is like her heavenly goodness.’’ 

“Do you see nothing but her heavenly goodness 
in it?” 

“This is the message?” 

“It is a message I crossed the ocean to bring.” 

“With the consent of her uncle?” 

“Madame d’Angouleme never expresses a wish 
contrary to the wishes of his majesty.” 

“We are then to suppose that Louis XVIII 
offers me, through you, monsieur, the opportunity 
to sign away my rights, and failing that, the oppor- 
tunity of taking them?” 

“Supposing you are Monseigneur the dauphin, 
we will let our supposition run as far as this.” 

I saw distinctly the position of Louis XVIII. 
Marquis du Plessy had told me he was a mass of 
superstition. No doubt he had behaved, as Bellen- 
ger said, for the good of the royalist cause. But 
the sanction of heaven was not on his behavior. 
Bonaparte was let loose on him like the dragon 
from the pit. And Frenchmen, after yawning 
eleven months or so in the king’s august face, 
threw up their hats for the dragon. In his second 
exile the inner shadow and the shadow of age com- 
bined against him. He had tasted royalty. It was 
not as good as he had once thought. Beside him 
always, he saw the face of Marie-Therese. She 
never forgot the hushed mystery of her brother. 


426 


Iv A. A. R R K 


Her silence and obedience to the crown, her loyalty 
to juggling and evasion, were more powerful than 
resistance. 

A young man, brought suddenly before the jaded 
nation and proclaimed at an opportune moment, 
might be a successful toy. The sore old king would 
oil more than the royalist cause, and the blessing 
of heaven would descend on one who restored the 
veritable dauphin. 

I never have seen the most stupid man doubt 
his power to ride if somebody hoists him into the 
saddle. 

“Let us go farther with our suppositions,’’ I 
said. “Suppose I decline?” 

I heard Madame de Ferrier gasp. 

The priest raised his eyebrows. 

“In that case you will be quite willing to give me 
a signed paper declaring your reasons.” 

“I sign no paper.” 

“Let me suggest that Monseigneur is not con- 
sistent. He neither resigns his supposed rights 
nor will he exercise them.” 

“I will neither resign them nor exercise them.” 

“This is virtually resigning them.” 

“The abbe will pardon me for saying it is not. 
My rights are mine, whether I use them or not.” 

“Monseigneur understands that opportunity is a 
visitor that comes but once.” 

“I understand that the most extraordinary thing 
has happened to-day that will ever go unrecorded 
in history. One Bourbon offers to give away a 


Iv A Z A R R B 


427 


throne he has lost and another Bourbon refuses it.” 

“You may well say it will go unrecorded in his- 
tory. Excepting this lady,” — the abbe bowed 
toward Eagle, — “there is no witness.” 

“Wise precautions have been taken,” I agreed. 
“This scrap of paper may mean anything or noth- 
ing.” 

“You decline?” he repeated. 

“I think France is done with the Bourbons, mon- 
sieur the abbe. A fine spectacle they have made 
of themselves, cooling their heels all over Europe, 
waiting for Napoleon’s shoes! Will I go sneaking 
and trembling to range myself among impotent 
kings and wrangle over a country that wants none 
of us? No, I never will! I see where my father 
slipped. I see where the eighteenth Louis slipped. 
I am a man tenacious beyond belief. You cannot 
loose my grip when I take hold. But I never 
have taken hold, I never will take hold — of my 
native country, struggling as she is to throw off 
hereditary rule!” 

‘You are an American!” said Abbe Edgeworth 
contemptuously. 

“If France called to me out of need, I would 
fight for her. A lifetime of peaceful years I would 
toss away in a minute to die in one achieving bat- 
tle for her. But she neither calls me nor needs me. 
A king is not simply an appearance — a continuation 
of hereditary rights!” 

“Your position is incredible,” said the priest. 

“I do not belittle the prospect you open before 


428 


Iv AZ ARRK 


me. I see the practical difficulties, but I see well 
the magnificence beyond them.” 

‘Then why do you hesitate?” 

“I don’t hesitate. A man is contemptible who 
stands shivering and longing outside of what he 
dare not attempt. I would dare if I longed. But I 
don’t long.” 

“Monseigneur believes there will be complica- 
tions?” 

“I know my own obstinacy. A man who tried to 
work me with strings behind a throne, would think 
he was struck by lightning.” 

“Sire,” Madame de Ferrier spoke out, “this is 
the hour of your life. Take your kingdom.” 

“I should have to take it, madame, if I got it. 
My uncle of Provence has nothing to give me. He 
merely says — ‘My dear dauphin, if Europe knocks 
Napoleon down, will you kindly take hold of a 
crank which is too heavy for me, and turn it for the 
good of the Bourbons? We may thus keep the 
royal machine in the family!’ ” 

“You have given no adequate reason for declin- 
ing this offer,” said the priest. 

“I will give no reason. I simply decline.” 

“Is this the explanation that I shall make to 
Madame d’Angouleme? Think of the tender sister 
who says — ‘Louis, you are recalled!’” 

“I do think of her. God bless her!” 

“Must I tell her that Monseigneur planted his 
feet like one of these wild cattle, and wheeled, and 
fled from the contemplation of a throne ?’' 


Iv AZ ARRK 


429 

‘‘You will dress it up in your own felicitous way, 
Monsieur.” 

“What do you wish me to say?” 

“That I decline. I have not pressed the embar- 
rassing question of why I was not recalled long 
ago. I reserve to myself the privilege of declin- 
ing without saying why I decline.” 

“He must be made to change his mind, mon- 
sieur!” Madame de Ferrier exclaimed. 

“I am not a man that changes his mind every 
time the clock strikes.” 

I took the padlocked book out of my breast and 
laid it upon the table. I looked at the priest, not at 
her. The padlocked book seemed to have no more 
to do with the conversation, than a hat or a pair of 
gloves. 

I saw, as one sees from the side of the eye, the 
scarlet rush of blood and the snow-white rush of 
pallor which covered her one after the other. The 
moment was too strenuous. I could not spare her. 
She had to bear it with me. 

She set her clenched hands on her knees. 

“Sire!” 

I faced her. The coldest look I ever saw in her 
gray eyes repelled me, as she deliberately said — 

“You are not such a fool!” 

I stared back as coldly and sternly, and delib- 
erately answered — 

“I am — just — such a fool!” 

“Consider how any person who might be to 


430 




blame for your decision, would despise you for it 
afterwards!’' 

“A boy in the first flush of his youth,” Abbe 
Edgeworth said, his fine jaws squared with a grin, 
“might throw away a kingdom for some woman 
who took his fancy, and whom he could not have 
perhaps, unless he did throw his kingdom away. 
And after he had done it he would hate the woman. 
But a young man in his strength doesn’t do such 
things!” 

“A king who hasn’t spirit to be a king!” Madame 
de Ferrier mocked. 

I mercilessly faced her down. 

“What is there about me? Sum me up. I am 
robbed on every side by any one who cares to fleece 
me. Whenever I am about to accomplish any- 
thing I fall down as if knocked on the head!” 

She rose from her seat. 

“You let yourself be robbed because you are 
princely! You have plainly left behind you every 
weakness of your childhood. Look at him in his 
strength. Monsieur Abbe! He has sucked in the 
vigor of a new country! The failing power of an 
old line of kings is renewed in him! You could not 
have nourished such a dauphin for France in your 
exiled court! Burying in the American soil has 
developed what you see for yourself — the king!” 

“He is a handsome man,” Abbe Edgeworth 
quietly admitted. 

“Oh, let his beauty alone! Look at his manhood 
— his kinghood!” 


L' A 2^ A R R 431 

“Of what use is his kinghood if he will not exer- 
cise it?’' 

“He must!” 

She turned upon me fiercely. 

“Have you no ambition?” 

“Yes, madame. But there are several kinds of 
ambition, as there are several kinds of success. You 
have to knock people down with each kind, if you 
want it acknowledged. As I told you awhile ago, 
I am tenacious beyond belief, and shall succeed in 
what I undertake.” 

“What are you undertaking?” 

“I am not undertaking to mount a throne.” 

“I cannot believe it! Where is there a man who 
would turn from what is offered you? Consider 
the life before you in this country. Compare it with 
the life you are throwing away.” She joined her 
hands. ‘"Sire, the men of my house who fought for 
the kings of yours, plead through me that you will 
take your inheritance.” 

I kept my eyes on Abbe Edgeworth. He con- 
sidered the padlocked book as an object directly 
in his line of vision. Its wooden covers and small 
metal padlock attracted the secondary attention we 
bestow on trifles when we are at great issues. 

I answered her, 

“The men of your house — and the women of 
your house, madame — cannot dictate what kings 
of my house should do in this day.” 

“Well as you appear to know him, madame,” 


432 


Iv AZ A.RRK 


said Abbe Edgeworth, "‘and loyally as you urge 
him, your efforts are wasted.” 

She next accused me — 

^'You hesitate on account of the Indians!” 

‘‘If there were no Indians in America, I should 
do just as I am doing.” 

“All men/’ the abbe noted, “hold in contempt a 
man who will not grasp power when he can.” 

“Why should I grasp power? I have it in my- 
self. I am using it.” 

“Using it to ruin yourself!” she cried. 

“Monseigneur!” The abbe rose. We stood eye 
to eye. “I was at the side of the king your father 
upon the scaffold. My hand held to his lips the 
crucifix of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his death no 
word of bitterness escaped him. True son of St. 
Louis, he supremely loved France. Upon you he 
laid injunction to leave to God alone the punish- 
ment of regicides, and to devote your life to the wel- 
fare of all Frenchmen. Monseigneur! are you deaf 
to this call of sacred duty? The voice of your father 
from the scaffold, in this hour when the fortunes 
of your house are lowest, bids you take your right- 
ful place and rid your people of the usurper who 
grinds France and Europe into the blood-stained 
earth!” 

I wheeled and walked across the floor from Abbe 
Edgeworth, and turned again and faced him. 

“Monsieur, you have put a dart through me. If 
anything in the universe could move me from my 
position^ what you have said should do it. But my 


Iv A.Z ARRB 


433 


father’s blood cries through me to-day — ‘Shall the 
son of Louis XVI be forced down the unwilling 
throats of his countrymen by foreign bayonets? — 
Russians — Germans — English ! — Shall the dauphin 
of France be hoisted to place by the alien!’ — My 

father would forbid it! You appeal to my 

family love. I bear about with me everywhere the 
pictured faces of my family. The father whose 
name you invoke^ is always close to my heart. That 
royal duchess, whom you are privileged to see daily, 
monsieur, and I — never — is so dear and sacred to 

me that I think of her with a prayer But 

my life is here Monsieur, in this new world, 

no man can say to me — ‘Come,’ or ‘Go.’ I am as 
free as the Indian. But the pretender to the throne 
of France, the puppet of Russia, of England, of the 
enemies of my country, — a slave to policy and in- 
trigue — a chained wanderer about Europe — O my 
God! to be such a pretender — gasping for air — for 
light — as I gasped in Ste. Pelagie! — O let me be a 
free man — a free man!” 

The old churchman whispered over and over — 

“My royal son!” 

My arms dropped relaxed. 

There was another reason. I did not give it. I 
would not give it. 

We heard the spring wind following the river 
channel — and a far faint call that I knew so well — 
the triangular wild flock in the upper air, flying 
north. 


434 


I. A Z A R R B 


“Honk! honk!” It was the jubilant cry of free- 
dom! 

“Madame,” said Abbe Edgeworth, resting his 
head on his hands, “I have seen many stubborn 
Bourbons, but he is the most obstinate of them all. 
We do not make as much impression on him as 
that little padlocked book.” 

Her terrified eyes darted at him — and hid their 
panic. 

“Monsieur Abbe,” she exclaimed piercingly, 
“tell him no woman will love him for throwing 
away a kingdom!” 

The priest began once more. 

“You will not resign your rights?” 

“No.” 

“You will not exercise them?” 

“No.” 

“If I postpone my -departure from to-day until 
to-morrow, or next week, or next month, is there 
any possibility of your reconsidering this decis- 
ion?” 

• “No.” 

“Monseigneur, must I leave you with this 
answer?” 

“Your staying cannot alter it. Monsieur Abbe.” 

“You understand this ends all overtures from 
France?” 

“I understand.” 

“Is there nothing that you would ask?” 

“I would ask Madame d’Angouleme to remem- 
ber me.” 



Vou are a king ! 


You are a king I" 



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435 

He came forward like a courtier, lifted my hand 
to his lips, and kissed it. 

“With your permission. Monseigneur, I will now 
retire and ride slowly back along the river until 
you overtake me. I should like to have some time 
for solitary thought.’’ 

“You have my permission, Monsieur Abbe.” 

He bowed to Madame de Ferrier, and so mov- 
ing to the door, he bowed again to me, and took his 
leave. 

His horse’s impatient start, and his remonstrance 
as he mounted, came plainly to our ears. The reg- 
ular beat of hoofs upon the sward followed ; then an 
alternating tap-tap of horse’s feet diminished down 
the trail. 

Eagle and I avoided looking at each other. 

A bird inquired through the door with inquisi- 
tive chirp, and was away. 

Volcanoes and whirlwinds, fire, and all force, 
held themselves condensed and quiescent in the still 
room. 

I moved first, laying Marie-Therese’s message 
on the padlocked book. Standing with folded arms 
I faced Eagle, and she as stonily faced me. It was 
a stare of unspeakable love that counts a thousand 
years as a day. 

She shuddered from head to foot. Thus a soul 
(night ripple in passing from its body. 

“I am not worth a kingdom!” her voice wailed 
through the room. 

I opened my arms and took her. Volcanoes and 


436 


Iv AZ ARRB 


whirlwinds, fire, and all force, were under our feet. 
We trod them breast to breast. 

She held my head between her hands. The tears 
streamed down her face. 

“Louis! — ^you are a king! — ^you are a king!” 


THE END. 


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